My Name is Max
by livefvrever
Summary: Fang is the "loser" at his tiny high school, because he can't talk to anyone at all. His brain shuts down. His tongue twists up. He's got so much to say, but no one he can say it to. But Max is different. Fang has no problem talking to her. He even finds himself falling for her. Max is everything Fang wants, except she's not human. (sensitive topics. reader discretion.)
1. Odin

**I can't believe I'm posting another story... but I feel like this one has a lot of clout. I know I keep doing these takes on Fang that are seriously OOC, but he doesn't talk that much in the books anyway (or rather, he's not supposed to), so this isn't that big of a stretch.**

 **Basically, I'm tired of reading high school stories where Fang's always the hot player who gets with every girl, ever. That's not his personality at all. I mean, I certainly did _not_ get that vibe from him in the books. His heart belongs to Max, and Max alone... but he has some serious personal issues that he left the Flock to work out. This story focuses on those personal issues, and what might have happened in an AU where Fang didn't have the bird-kid-added-hotness going for him.**

* * *

He woke up promptly at 6:15, when his alarm went off. The sun was out, the birds were chirping, and the morning light filtering through his bedroom window was _not_ hitting him in the eyes, for once.

Unfortunately for Fang, another morning meant another day at Ridgefield High School.

Another day of wandering through the halls, avoiding peoples' gazes. Another day of sitting in the tiny stairwell behind the cafeteria, quickly eating his food so he wouldn't have to interact with any people. Another day of sitting in the back of every class, squinting at the board and trying not to get picked on to answer complicated trigonometry questions.

Basically, another day of hell.

He could hear his sister Ella in the bathroom as he got out of bed. There wasn't a single day that went by that Fang did not wish he was more like his sister. They might have been twins, but they were polar opposites. Ella was friends with _everyone_ in the senior class, while Fang was only friends with Iggy and the spider that lived under his desk in Chemistry. Ella was a champion soccer player, while Fang spent his after-school time working in the library, where it was quiet enough that he didn't have to talk to anyone. Ella wanted to go to Boston University to attend law school, because she loved to talk. Fang wanted to attend Harvey Mudd, a small college with about 400 kids, because he absolutely did not want to talk at all.

He reached into his closet and pulled out the same outfit he wore every day- dark jeans with a dark shirt on top. The perfect outfit to blend in and be unnoticed.

He waited with bated breath behind the closed door of his room, for his sister to finish her usual beauty routine and exit the bathroom. Usually, it would take her about fifteen minutes, but today she was taking longer, for some reason. Fang waited until he could hear the click of the door unlocking and then ran to the bathroom, silent as a cat.

Unfortunately, Ella had left her mascara in the bathroom, and she stuck her foot in the door to keep Fang from hastily closing it. "Fang! Wait!"

Fang winced as Ella entered the bathroom, smiling at her brother. Her dark brown hair had been styled up today, and she began putting on another coating of whatever makeup she wore.

"Sorry. I'll only take a minute. I want to look extra-gorgeous today." She stopped pouting in the mirror to grin apologetically at Fang, who forced a smile on his face.

"It's- It's fine," he managed to get out, sounding nearly normal. "T-take your time."

Ella was gone within two minutes, leaving Fang to turn the water in the shower up to nearly boiling heat. The shower was one of the few places he could relax and just be himself. The fog engulfed the bathroom to the point where he couldn't even see his own body if he looked down, which was exactly what he was aiming for.

Fang had been diagnosed with extreme social anxiety disorder at the age of three, when his parents noticed that he tried to bury himself in the sandbox at preschool instead of interact with other kids. His father had pulled him out, gasping for air, and had shook the sand out of Fang's head, and had taken his son home early. While Ella learned to recite her alphabet and write her name in the company of twenty other 3-year-olds, Fang watched National Geographic at home and learned how to predict tornadoes and make a homemade seismograph.

Then kindergarten arrived, and the Walkers were left stumped. Homeschooling wasn't an option, as both Walker parents were busy running the family business. But running a zoning development business had made them quite wealthy over the generations, and Fang was taken to the best therapists money could buy and given the best medicine that was available. However, Fang's problem only increased in magnitude, until he tried flushing himself down the toilet during afternoon recess after being asked to give an impromptu show-and-tell.

Finally, the problem was found. Fang Walker was incapable of talking to people if he could see their face. A strange phenomenon, but the Walkers found it to be true after multiple experiments and trials. So Fang was sent to regular school with express permission from his counselors and teachers to not have to make any eye contact and not have to talk to anyone.

It was a lonely life, but Fang had been living it.

He turned off the shower reluctantly, after noticing that the time on his waterproof watch read _6:50_. Fang dried his dark hair and pulled his clothes on, loping quietly down the stairs so as to not alert anyone in the home to his presence.

But Fang was unlucky a second time. He entered the kitchen to find both Walker parents, Anne and Jeb, sitting at the counter chatting animatedly about zoning laws. His sister Ella was also present, making herself cereal with warm milk, one of her many weird quirks. All three of them looked up when he entered the room.

"Good morning, Fang," his mother said gently, and Fang nodded.

"It is," he said simply, looking at the toaster instead of his mother.

"There's French toast from the bakery in the fridge, but there's also cereal if you're counting calories." Anne looked pointedly at her daughter, who struggled to swallow a mouthful of cereal.

"Hey! Coach Martinez says we need to be in top shape for our game on Friday!" Ella defended.

Fang let the words of his mother and sister wash over him as he, too, walked over to the pantry and pulled out Corn Flakes. How these were healthy, Fang didn't know, but he quietly dumped some into a bowl.

He had just finished eating when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Fang pulled it out to find a text from Iggy, his one true friend.

 _Where r u? Parking's a bitch. Also, we're switching seats in homeroom so u better get here fast unless u wanna sit without me._

Fang began typing back. _Coming. Ella took a while in the shower._

"Hey Ma!" Ella yelled from the foyer. "Where the heck are my soccer cleats?"

Fang grabbed the keys to his black SUV, a present he had been given for his sixteenth birthday two years ago. Jeb Walker had thought teaching his son to drive would allow the two of them to bond. And it worked... until Fang began having an anxiety attack behind the wheel, and nearly ran over a preschool hopscotch game on the sidewalk. So Fang drove alone, although sometimes he drove his sister back home from soccer practice. Ella had her own car, but she hated driving and preferred getting rides from other people.

"Leaving for school?" Jeb's voice startled Fang, and he nodded, not looking at his father. "Got your homework?"

A small smile came to Fang's lips. His lack of a social life had given him ample time to focus on his grades, and Fang was a straight-A student. He appreciated his father's joke, but could not formulate a response to it. "Yeah," was all he said after a pause.

Jeb Walker nodded. "Go kill 'em."

An ominous message, Fang reflected as he backed out of the driveway. But he appreciated his father's comments all the same.

* * *

 **As someone who was personally diagnosed with mild social anxiety disorder, this story also hits close to home. If you feel I'm portraying the struggles of it unfairly, please tell me! I need to know!**

 **P.S. I'm going to update Enigma of Infatuation within the week. Hopefully.**


	2. Zwei

**Song of the Chapter: Bad Day by Daniel Powter (throwback to like 2006)**

 _ **You stand in the line just to hit a new low**_  
 _ **You're faking a smile with the coffee to go**_  
 _ **You tell me your life's been way off line**_  
 _ **You're falling to pieces every time**_

* * *

Fang carefully rolled his SUV into the corner most parking spot, underneath the large willow tree whose golden leaves were falling off in obligatory tradition of autumn weather. He stepped out, hearing the crunch of hundreds of golden leaves underfoot, and pulled his hood up. The walk from the parking lot to school was not a long one by any means, but Fang had enough scarring experiences to know that what looked like a 100-yard walk could stretch up to be a million miles.

He didn't make eye contact with the cheerleaders who were lining the steps of the school, advertising the homecoming dance with ear-shattering cheers. He didn't look at the football players who were busy having an arm wrestling tournament on one of the picnic tables in the courtyard outside. And he brushed hastily past the school principal, who looked frazzled as usual.

Fang had developed many techniques to not have to talk to anyone, and he entered homeroom to find that a familiar strawberry-blond haired boy had indeed saved a seat for him, towards the back.

Iggy had his feet up on Fang's desk, and rolled his eyes when Fang cleared his throat. "Oh, look who decided to show up."

Fang sat down. "I told you I was running late."

"If I had a dollar for every time you were 'late' for something, I'd have enough money to buy first-row season passes to the Raiders games. But as it is, I'm poor as shit." Iggy sighed. "Such is the life of the lower middle class white trash."

Fang grinned. For some reason, Iggy Nelson was the only person he could talk freely to. He had known Iggy since preschool, when a strawberry-blond boy had offered to help Fang dig a big enough hole in the sandbox to bury himself. "I know what to get you for your birthday now."

"Fang, if you get me Raiders tickets, I will probably kiss you."

" _That's_ something you never want to hear your boyfriend say," A girl's voice floated down to where the boys were sitting, and a second later, a blonde girl sat down in the empty seat at the three-person table. She smiled warmly at Fang after kissing Iggy. "Hey, Fang."

"Hey," Fang muttered, trying not to duck his head.

J.J., Iggy's girlfriend of about six months, was a nice girl to be sure, but Fang would never personally see the attraction Iggy had to her. She was tall, pretty, and had a nice smile, but he would never be able to make eye contact with her long enough to notice. Fang had never had a girlfriend in his eighteen years of living, which was probably a side effect of his wanting to melt into a puddle whenever a girl so much as looked at him.

Homeroom was a free period at Ridgefield, so Iggy and J.J. began playing a rather intensive game of footsies after they had all declared themselves present. Neither of them were very good at aiming, and after Fang's foot was caressed for the seventeenth time, he crossed his legs and pulled out his notebook. It was a tattered, battered, slightly peeling thing, and it still smelled distinctly of Taylor Swift's perfume after Ella had accidentally knocked over a bottle on it. But it was still Fang's journal, and it was stuffed to the point where multiple pages threatened to fall out.

Because just because Fang had trouble talking to others didn't mean he had nothing to say. In fact, he had a _lot_ to say. On paper, that was.

Fang uncapped a pen from his bag and looked around the room to find inspiration. Sliding his headphones in his ears, he smiled as the homeroom teacher barked at a student who was sending spitballs towards another kid on the other side of the classroom. He began to sketch, letting lines and circles fill in the blank spaces of the page, letting his pen emote everything he could never say out loud.

"Hey, Fang!"

Startled, Fang's pen slid across the length of the page, and he sighed as he stared at his drawing, now ruined by the Biro line that ran across the gremlin-teacher's head. He pulled his headphones out of his ears and looked up to find Iggy already packed up and standing.

"Class ended, like, three minutes ago, man."

"Oh. Whoops."

As he hastily closed his journal and shoved into his backpack, he could hear Iggy say, "You know, if you weren't listening to music, like, twenty-four-seven, you would probably be more observant."

Fang shrugged. Kids at his school mostly left him alone these days, but earlier, in elementary school, he used to be called Spacey or Zono because he had a tendency to zone out of the real world and retreat into his own mind. This same problem led to him being clocked in the face by a particularly unforgiving dodge ball in sixth grade, which was why he had a chipped front tooth.

(No, the nickname _Fang_ did not result from that.)

* * *

Iggy was only in two of his classes, so he had to experience Chemistry alone.

Fang abhorred Chemistry for one reason- every Monday, the teacher would call for a switch-up of lab partners, and the worst part was that the students would pick their own lab partners. Fang usually either sat down alone at a desk, and the other kids would argue over who had to sit next to him. As he walked towards the lower level of the school, inhaling the familiar distinct smell of sulfur that would never quite be fully cleaned off of the lab counters, Fang braced himself for another awkward partner switch. He entered the classroom and headed straight for the back, where there was thankfully an empty lab station.

Thirty seconds later, a girl with flaming red hair sat down next to him.

Fang's eyes widened slightly. Usually, his new lab partner would be coerced into sitting next to him because it would be the only seat left in the class. Either Fang or the plastic skeleton that was used for anatomy class and awkward sexual health demonstrations.

But this girl had chosen to sit next to him when there were at least six other empty seats in the classroom. One of the empty seats was next to Dylan Black, who was one of the most popular boys in the school. Fang couldn't understand why this mysterious girl had chosen to sit next to him rather than Dylan Black, but he chose not to question it.

The bell rang to signal the start of class, and Fang hurried to pull out his chemistry textbook. The teacher, Dr. Abate, crossed his arms in front of the class. "All right guys, you know the drill. You have five minutes to introduce yourselves to your new lab partners. Don't kill each other before the end of the week, and you get two extra credit points. Ready, set, go."

It was then that the mysterious red-haired girl turned to face Fang. She smiled at him, revealing two rows of slightly crooked, white teeth. "Hey! I'm Lissa!"

"Fang," Fang muttered.

"That's an interesting name. Anyways, I'm sorry if I'm absolute shit at chemistry, because in my old district, chem wasn't a requirement, so I've never taken this class before." She squinted at the textbook. "What the hell is an _anion_?"

This girl was new. That explained why she wasn't fawning over Dylan, whose lab partner was, as usual, a blonde cheerleader who was fawning over his bicep size. There was actually an abnormally large number of cheerleaders in this class, now that Fang thought about it. "It- it's an ion with a negative charge," Fang mumbled, hiding his face behind his own textbook.

Lissa nodded, her lips pursed. "Hmm. Okay. Well... I literally just sat in the back so that the teacher wouldn't call on me, because I don't want to make a fool of myself in front of everyone." She laughed. "I know that sounds really corny and stupid, but I'm actually a pretty shy person."

Fang smiled behind his textbook. "I get that."

"Yeah, well, you try moving across the country one month into your senior year of high school. I swear, my parents hate me." Lissa glanced at the textbook Fang was casually ducking behind. "I mean, you get it, right?"

Before Fang could answer, the loud voice of Dr. Abate made him jump and knock over his textbook. "Okay, well, we're going to have a surprise quiz today. A _pop_ quiz, as they're called. You have until the end of class, and you can use your textbooks, so I don't want to see any miserable excuses for test answers this time. Understood, Johnson, Parker, Black?" He glared pointedly at a couple of the football players, and Dylan just guffawed.

"Your task is to name the charges of as many ions as possible, starting _now_."

As Fang hurriedly began scribbling down words, Lissa swore next to him and struggled to pull out her own textbook from her abnormally small bag. She finally succeeded, however, she knocked over Fang's journal in the process. And Fang's journal fell down and landed face up... right on the page of his crude sketch of his gremlin-homeroom teacher.

Lissa bent down to pick the journal up just as Fang dove for it in the hopes that he could get to it and pick it up before her. However, he was too late, and he watched as Lissa's eyes widened as she saw his drawing.

"Wow," Lissa whispered, staring at the drawing. "Did... did _you_ draw this?"

Mortified, Fang snatched the journal from her and shoved it deep into his backpack. Just then, the bell rang, and Fang had never been more thankful. He leaped out of his seat, leaving his pop quiz paper which had approximately three words on it behind. Lissa stared after him, disconcerted.

"You know, it's really good!" she called after Fang, but he was too far away to hear her.

* * *

Iggy had chosen to go out with J.J. and her friends during lunchtime. He and J.J. had both invited Fang to go to the nearby Dairy Queen with them, but Fang was not in the mood for slushies and ducking conversations with about ten other girls. So he decided to sit in the same stairwell he had found, where hardly anybody ever ventured. This was probably due to the fact that the stairs didn't actually _lead_ anywhere. The school was initially intended to be three floors tall, but the district had run out of funding. Fang's secret staircase was tucked away in a corner of the cafeteria and was the only reminder of what Ridgefield High could have been.

Anne had packed him his lunch, and he began eating his sandwich while pulling out his journal. He flipped to the page with the drawing of his gremlin-teacher, and began sketching sharper horns onto the teacher's forehead. After a few minutes, the Biro line across the page could hardly be found. Satisifed with his handiwork, Fang was about to close his journal when another deep voice startled him into dropping the remains of his sandwich.

Fang looked up to find the shadow of Dylan Black looming over him.

"Hey, Zono," Dylan said, bringing up a nickname Fang hadn't heard since the sixth grade. "Enjoying your lunch that your mommy packed you?"

Fang glanced at his sandwich, which was lying dangerously close to Dylan's feet. No, he was not enjoying it anymore.

Dylan snorted at Fang's silence. "What's the matter? Did someone cut out your tongue? Why don't you stand up, look me in the eye, and talk to me like an actual person? Oh, wait. You _can't_."

Dylan's raised voice had turned some heads from nearby tables in the cafeteria. Fang caught Ella's stare, who was sitting at a nearby table, and she started to get up out of her seat. "Dylan, just-"

"Just _what_?" Dylan taunted. "You can't even say a full sentence to someone without getting all scared, can you? No wonder you're a loner. No _wonder_ you have no friends. No fucking wonder."

Ella had reached the situation. "Black, shut up. You don't know what he's going through. You can't talk like that to my brother."

Dylan crossed his arms and glared at Ella. "So? Can't you see that your brother's a retard? I can't believe you're twins."

Ella stuck her middle finger out at Dylan. "You _don't_ talk like that to my brother, okay? Get the fuck out of here unless you want an action shot of me kicking your balls so hard you won't be able to use them for six months."

Dylan scowled. "Can't believe you let your sister talk for you," he spat at Fang. Then he turned and left, leaving Ella with her brother.

Fang made room for her on the stairwell. Ella sat down, and they both stared at the wall in front of them for a few minutes.

Then Ella sighed. "Fang... why do you let people like that walk all over you? I know you don't want to hear this, but... it's like elementary school all over again." She put her hand on Fang's shoulder. "Please. Try to just... I dunno... be more social."

Fang shrugged. Looking at the chipped red paint of the banister, he said quietly, "You said it yourself. You have no idea what I'm going through; what I go through every single day."

Ella sighed again. "Well... do you at least wanna come and sit with me and the other girls? You don't have to talk at all. Nudge won't stop talking about the Bachelorette, which is annoying as shit, but at least you'll be surrounded by people, and you won't single yourself out as a target so much."

Fang shook his head. "No. I'm fine."

Ella looked at her brother. "You sure?"

Fang nodded. "Yeah."

"Can you look me in the eyes and say that?"

Fang took a deep breath and looked his sister in her eyes. They shared the same dark brown ones, so dark that they were almost black. If he squinted, it was almost as though he was looking into his own. "I'm fine."

But as Ella squeezed his shoulder and returned to her friends, Fang began to wonder if he truly was fine.

* * *

 **Wow. I'm overwhelmed with the amount of support this story has gotten so far, and that's only on the first chapter! I hope to live up to everyone's expectations :)**

 **Review if you liked it or if you have any criticism! I'm open to anything, because this story's still in the beginning stages. Also, I'm officially on summer break now (college kicked me out for the next 3 months), so I can update more often!**


	3. Tatu

**SOTC: Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day**

 _ **I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known.**_

 _ **Don't know where it goes, but it's home to me and I walk alone**_

* * *

Fang was tasked with picking up Ella after soccer practice, which was fine because he worked at the neighborhood library on Mondays until her practices ended.

His job was to sort books in the back, behind the book return bins. Fang actually loved this job because it was quiet, hard work. He usually wasn't disturbed very often, and he loved seeing the sort of diverse books people checked out and returned on a daily basis. For example, he had just heard the soft thud of a few books falling into the drop-off bin, and he reached into the bin to pull out _World War II: Hitler's Side_ and _Changing a Diaper for Dummies_.

Smirking, Fang opened the diaper book only to close it a second later, disgusted. The drawings and diagrams of how to properly fold and dispose of a loaded diaper were a little too graphic for him. And there was a little stain on one of the pages that Fang chose to believe was chocolate, even though it definitely didn't smell like it.

"Fang, I'm heading out now." Kate, the closest thing Fang had to a coworker at the library, waved to him and he waved back. Kate worked as a librarian's assistant, which meant she too was in the back room quite often, stacking books alphabetically. She was a freshman at UC Irvine and was majoring in international relations and minoring in dance. Fang liked her because she would usually talk nonstop about her life, which meant he didn't have to talk at all. Sometimes she wouldn't even stop for a breath.

As Kate left, another stack of books fell into the drop-off bin, and Fang pulled them out to find _Fifty Shades of Orange- a Book for the Blind_ and _Lego Star Wars Volume II_. Fang smirked as he saw the titles, and a second later he heard a voice. "That girl who just left. She's cute."

"Iggy, what're you doing here?"

Iggy shrugged and slid onto the counter where Fang was stacking books. He knocked over a pile and hastily stooped to pick the books up. "Dropping off my blind person erotica and my Star Wars books, of course."

"You're not blind," Fang said, stacking more books on top of the pile Iggy had haphazardly constructed. "But you will be soon if you keep wearing those dumb shades indoors."

Iggy removed his aviator sunglasses. "J.J. gave them to me. She thinks they make me look like George Clooney. And if that turns her on, I'm not gonna fight it." He stuck the sunglasses in his back pocket. "Seriously Fang, you need to be getting some. How old are you? Eighteen? And you've still never even motorboated a girl?"

Fang winced. "That sounds gross."

"No, the fact that you _think_ it's gross is gross." Iggy leaned back onto the tower of books, which threatened to fall over. "I want you to have sex with a girl before school's over this year."

Fang slammed a book onto Iggy's hand. "No."

"Dude... at least ask that girl out. Homecoming's in a couple weeks." Iggy held his now-red hand up to his face and winced. "The hot Asian chick with the black hair and the glasses. What's her name?"

"Kate," Fang muttered. "And I can't do that. She's... she's not my type."

Iggy snorted. "You have a type? What's your type, then? A faceless girl, so you don't have to look her in the eye? But then how would you make out with her?"

Fang grinned. "I don't really care about the physical part of a relationship."

"Wow. Don't let J.J. hear you say that. She might leave me for you. It's a known fact that girls mostly want boyfriends to listen to their problems with a cup of tea and nod occasionally. They love _sensitive_ guys." Iggy sighed. "Good luck with that."

"Thanks." Fang mumbled, mentally groaning as a large pile of books came cascading into the drop-off bin.

Iggy hopped off of the book counter and slapped his sunglasses back onto his face. "Well, I gotta jet. That Calc test tomorrow is going to kill me... and then my parents will for failing it."

Fang shrugged. Math had always been easy for him. With all its rules and its concepts, it made perfect sense. It was nothing like English, where there could be multiple interpretations of the same thing, or like Chemistry, where sometimes lab experiments wouldn't work even if you did everything perfectly. Math was simple and straightforward. "Good luck with that."

Iggy smirked. "See ya."

* * *

Back home, Fang sat in front of his computer with his headset. He moved the mouse skilfully to avoid getting blasted in the face by the Level 1 shooter hiding behind a small rock. Fang activated his super shield to protect his avatar from getting killed by a particularly large guy who was meandering along the path.

He maneuvered his way to a desolated spot, wondering where the hell he was supposed to go. Fang clicked on the little box in the corner, the one which let him know what quests he still had to complete.

 _No quests available._

"Fuck you," Fang muttered.

A second later, he got mowed down by a large missile that landed right on top of his avatar's woefully underprotected head.

If only he had spent his coins on a thicker helmet.

* * *

 _He was sitting in a hard plastic chair, facing twenty kids and one very irritated-looking adult. He swallowed the bile that was rising in his throat and tried hard to keep his hands from shaking._

 _"Nicholas. Are you planning on presenting your show-and-tell anytime soon?" The teacher's harsh voice sliced through the air like a knife through warm butter, and he gulped, standing up slowly. The laughter of the twenty other kids in his class echoed in his ears._

 _He inhaled deeply and winced as his breath hitched. Fixating his eyes firmly on the checked tile of the floor, he began to speak. "Today I f-found a goldfish." He swallowed and continued, holding up a small bag. "In-in the lake." Nicholas looked at the small plastic Baggie and noticed that the fish wasn't moving. He gulped slightly. "Um... I named him Freddie."_

 _The class stared in silence. His hands shook so much that the Baggie he was holding also shook tremendously. And poor Freddie shook with it._

 _"Nicholas." His teacher stood up, concerned. "Nicholas... that fish is dead."_

 _He stared at the bag, uncomprehending. Freddie was upside down, his eyes wide open. His hands began shaking more, but he knew from past experience that if he stopped in the middle of show-and-tell, he would be punished. "Um... I f-found him in the lake," he tried again, his voice also shaking. He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder._

 _"Nicholas, stop." The teacher's calm but firm voice caused him to flinch and for the bag to slip from his hands. As the Baggie exploded on the ground, water flew everywhere, and Freddie flew straight into Ella's face in the front row._

 _As she screamed and pushed her chair back, the legs of her plastic chair slipped in the puddle of water from the bag, and Nicholas watched in slow motion as she fell backwards and hit her forehead hard on the ground._

 _"Ella!" The teacher yelled, running over to the motionless girl on the floor. "Call 911!" she barked at another kid, who jumped up and hurriedly picked up the telephone on the teacher's desk. Nicholas stood there, immobile, staring._

 _"Murderer!" he heard in ring in his ears. "He killed the fish, and then he killed his sister!"_

 _"Murderer!"_

 _"MURDERER!"_

 _He couldn't take it anymore. He ran from the room, straight into the bathroom, and locked himself in a stall. He turned and stared at the small puddle of water inside the toilet, dry-heaving. If the other kids were right... if he_ had _killed his sister..._

 _He imagined becoming smaller and smaller until he was the size of a goldfish._

* * *

"Fang. _Fang_. Fang!"

He opened his eyes and jerked awake at the touch of cool fingertips on his skin. Fang peeled his face off of his computer's keyboard and winced when he caught the lasting imprints of the keys on his cheek. "Wha?"

"School starts in fifteen minutes," A silhouette leaned forward into Fang's blurry line of sight, and he blinked rapidly to find Ella's freshly made-up face staring into his. "And not to put more pressure on you, but you said you'd drive me... so..."

It didn't hit Fang until he caught the time in his watch. "Shit."

"Shit indeed. Hurry up. Here, I reached into your closet and pulled some clothes out for you." She handed him a blue polo shirt and dark jeans. "There's bagels downstairs. I'll be waiting in your car." And then she was gone as quickly as she came, leaving Fang to hastily pull on the clothes Ella had picked for him.

Five minutes later, Fang was trying to brush his hair with his fingers as Ella climbed into the passenger seat next to him. Fang glanced idly at her forehead, where no amount of concealer could completely hide the small jagged scar right above her eyebrow. His stomach lurched, and he looked away.

Ella's phone chimed, and she groaned upon looking at the screen. "That asshat Dylan's having a party on Saturday." She glanced at Fang, who kept his eyes trained on the road. "But apparently _everybody's_ going. Nudge won't shut up about it. Well, she _never_ shuts up, but still." She looked at Fang again. "You should go."

He shook his head. In his four years of high school, he had never been to a single high school party, and he didn't intend to, either.

"C'mon, Fang. Everyone's gonna be there. It'll be your perfect chance to ask a girl to Homecoming."

Fang pummeled the brake a little too hard to avoid slamming into the back of a large pickup truck. "Uh... I'm not going."

"But Fang... you're a senior in high school! You have to experience all this stuff at one point in your life, you know?"

This sounded eerily familiar to what Iggy had told him yesterday. Fang wondered whether his best friend and his sister were planning this. He pulled into his regular parking spot and opened the door. All he said was, "We're going to be late for class."

* * *

 **I've finished outlining the story. There are going to be exactly twenty-five chapters. This chappie was k** **ind of weird and choppy, but necessary. And for anyone who just wants to see Max... there needs to be proper exposition and stuff, so it's going to be a little while. Like I said before, I'm trying not to make this a high school story where Fax happens instantly.**

 **but trust me, it was really exciting to write it... all things considered... ;)**


	4. Chaar

**SOTC: Beautiful by Christina Aguilera**

 _ **Everyday is so wonderful,**_

 _ **Then suddenly, it's hard to breathe.**_

 _ **Now and then I get insecure from all the pain,**_

 _ **I'm so ashamed**_

* * *

The Calc test wasn't bad. While Iggy held his head in his hands and griped, Fang whizzed through the complex integration problems. He was the first one to turn his paper in, which earned him an approving smile from his math teacher and an annoyed huff from the rest of the class.

* * *

Two periods later, Fang looked down in Chemistry to find a large red F stamped on his paper. He glanced up at his teacher, Dr. ter Borcht, and sighed. This was the pop quiz that they had taken last week, and Fang's three hastily scribbled words on the page had netted him a seventeen percent.

This would tank his grade in the class for sure. Even Dylan had achieved a C-, although that grade for an open-note textbook quiz was hardly a cause for celebration.

Fang idly glanced over at Lissa's pop quiz paper, which she had left blank. A large red zero was written on the top of her paper, along with the dreaded words _see me._ Lissa grinned ruefully at Fang. "Told you I was shit at Chemistry."

Maybe it was Dylan's dirty looks at him across the room. Maybe it was Ella and Iggy's persistent begging of him to engage more socially. Maybe he just wanted to prove to himself that he wasn't as bad at Chemistry as his pop quiz made him seem. In any case, the words erupted out of Fang's mouth before he could control them. "I c-could tutor you if you want. In Chemistry."

Lissa's large green eyes brightened, and she revealed a smile full of slightly crooked, white teeth. "Really? That'd be amazing!"

Dr. ter Borcht cleared his throat, and immediately the class fell silent to listen. Unlike most teachers, ter Borcht had the ability to get a class quiet with barely any effort. Probably because he looked so forbearing. With his long gray beard, thick glasses, and that lab coat he insisted on wearing all the time, he looked just like a mad scientist. "You'll find that most of you did pretty well on this pop quiz, all things considered. We _did_ still have more failures than I'd like, but I'm willing to bet that is because you either did not take this quiz seriously, or you are totally new to this class and need guidance. In any case, today is a work period. I suggest you work on memorizing ions, because we are going to have a real quiz on Friday, with no books to help you. And Lissa Marvin, would you mind coming up here to talk to me?"

Lissa winced and walked up to the front of the room. Fang watched her go as students around him began talking and pulling out their notebooks and textbooks to study.

A moment later, Dylan slid into Lissa's empty seat, and Fang mentally groaned. "Hey, pretty boy." Dylan said, raising his eyebrows at Fang's pop quiz paper. "Didn't study, did we?"

"It's a pop quiz. You _can't_ study," Fang muttered, and Dylan just laughed. Lissa returned from the teacher looking a little more mollified, and Fang noticed that Dr. ter Borcht was letting her retake the ions pop quiz. But Dylan was still sitting in her seat.

"Hey, sweets." Dylan said, and Lissa grinned.

"Hey."

"I hope you don't mind; I was just chatting with your lab partner here," Dylan said, smiling and showing off two rows of perfect, pearly white teeth. Probably paid thousands of dollars to get that done.

Lissa shook her head. "No problem."

Dylan leaned slightly forward and put his hand on hers. "I noticed you didn't do so hot on the quiz either. You wanna get together sometime and study?" He raised his voice on the word _study_ , so it was obvious what Dylan really meant.

Fang groaned and closed his eyes, waiting for Lissa to become putty in Dylan's bright, blue-eyed gaze, and agree to his ridiculous flirting. Because what girl would choose Fang over Dylan?

To his surprise, however, Lissa said, "Actually, Fang's tutoring me in Chem. So no thanks."

Fang opened his eyes to stare at Lissa in shock, but his expression was nothing compared to how far Dylan's jaw dropped. Of course. No girl had ever rejected Dylan Black, but not only was Lissa saying no to Dylan, but she was hanging out with the school _loser_? Dylan could not comprehend it.

"Oh," Dylan said after a pause. "Well... you're gonna miss out on a lot, Lise."

"I think I'll be just fine," Lissa said, still smiling as though she had just complimented Dylan on his shirt. "And don't call me Lise."

Dylan numbly got out of her seat and walked back to his own, where he impatiently brushed away the blonde cheerleader who immediately threw herself over him. Lissa turned to smile at Fang.

"I'm used to guys hitting on me. I guess it's the red hair. I _knew_ I shouldn't have dyed it. I used to be a blonde, but I was having too much fun, so I decided to go red. New hair, new school, all that jazz. Anyways, what time next week works for you?"

"Uh, Tuesday?" Fang said, and Lissa nodded.

"Sure!"

The bell rang to signal the end of class, and as Lissa gathered her books and headed out the door, Fang called out, "Wait!"

Lissa stared at him expectantly, and he cleared his throat, heart pumping. Maybe it was the fact that he wanted to stick it further to Dylan, who needed to be taught a lesson. Maybe he wanted to prove to himself that he _could_ interact socially.

Maybe he liked this girl. "You w-wanna go to Dylan's party with me on Saturday?"

Lissa's face broke into another wide smile, and Fang's heart began to beat faster. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Maybe she would say yes. Maybe he could get used to that smile. "You want me to go with you?"

"Y-yeah," Fang said, wringing his hands behind his back. He just wanted to melt into a puddle, but he forced himself to look into Lissa's bright green eyes.

She smiled at him. "Yes. Yeah. I'll definitely go with you."

Then she left the room, but Fang didn't notice. He was busy floating on a cloud. Higher and higher, until he was above the chemistry room, until Dylan and the others were nothing more than specks moving on the ground; tiny, insignificant, easily crushed.

* * *

"You did WHAT?!"

Nudge's voice erupted across the cafeteria, causing many heads to turn and Fang to duck down in his seat where he sat sandwiched between Gazzy, Iggy's friend from soccer, and J.J.

"I a-asked Lissa to Dylan's party," Fang muttered, picking at the school-sanctioned mac and cheese that tasted more like rubber than it did dairy.

Iggy clapped him on the back. "You are the man, Fang. I _knew_ I'd get to you eventually."

"But the party's on Saturday!" Nudge gasped, as if someone had just told her the sky was actually purple. "Fang, what are you going to wear?"

"Wear?" he asked weakly, looking at her. Was there some sort of dress code for parties?

Nudge scoffed and gestured to Fang's dark blue shirt and ripped jeans that Ella had handed him this morning. "As your sister's best friend, I'm your friend, too, by osmosis. And I will _not_ let a friend of mine go to his first high school party dressed like a Calculus nerd. Even though that's what you are. No offense."

Fang glanced down at his clothes. He barely noticed what he wore anyways. "Um..."

Nudge jabbed a lettuce-laden fork dangerously close to Fang's eyes. "What you need is a makeover. And I'm really good at giving them."

Ella chimed in. "Fang. Please. Let Nudge and I make you over. It'll be fun."

Fang looked over at Iggy and J.J. for help, but they had resumed their makeout session from homeroom, and were not to be bothered. So he sighed and shrugged. He couldn't resist his sister for very long. "Okay."

* * *

Saturday morning, Fang woke up to a jet of warm air directly in between his eyes. He opened them to find Ella pointing a hair dryer directly at his face. Fang scrambled up out of his tangle of blankets and swatted the dryer out of Ella's hands, where it clattered on the ground. Ella smiled at his wide eyes. "Oh, look. Sleeping Beauty's up."

"Why?" was all Fang could muster up, and Ella grinned, pulling the covers off of him.

"You said Nudge and I could make you up. And you're picking Lissa up at seven, which only gives us ten hours to prep you."

Fang sat up, rubbing stars out of his eyes. "Ten... _hours_?"

"Fang. Dear brother. This is your first high school party. And it's a big deal. We're going to have you looking like a Calvin Klein model pretty soon."

Nudge arrived just after Fang finished eating breakfast. Both Walker parents were away on a week-long business trip, but Anne had left plenty food in the fridge (and plenty of cereal for Ella). Fang had just finished his salad-sized bowl of Lucky Charms mixed with Froot Loops when the front door flung open and in waltzed Nudge, carting a makeup bag the size of a small suitcase.

"Where's the lucky man?" Nudge asked, and grinned when she saw Fang with his mussed-up hair and his rumpled sweatpants. "Oh, this is going to be so much fun."

Ella and Nudge sat Fang down in a dining chair they had carted up to the upstairs bathroom. Nudge began washing Fang's hair in the sink, expertly threading shampoo and conditioner through his damp hair. After his hair dried, Ella pulled out scissors, and grinned when Fang winced.

"Don't worry. I watch _tons_ of Bethany Mota. I know what I'm doing. Just close your eyes and let it happen."

"You can't say that! That's what rapists say!" Nudge whispered, elbowing Ella.

That didn't make Fang feel too good about whatever Ella was doing to his head. He closed his eyes so he didn't have to watch Ella hack off long bits of his dark hair. Ten minutes later, he heard Ella say, "Oh, shit!"

Fang gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. "What?"

"No... it's my phone. Sorry. It startled me. But you're done, Fang."

Fang opened his eyes and immediately closed them. His long, shaggy hair that used to be his most effective weapon at covering his eyes... it was now extremely short and was styled up, so that it hung in soft spikes over his forehead. Nudge gave a low whistle. "If I had known Ella's brother could be this hot... Nah. You're her _brother_. It'd be weird."

Fang ran a hand through his short hair and tried not to flinch. "Uh..."

"You look amazing, Fang."

Nudge then started dabbing stuff from a tub onto Fang's face. "Guys _do_ wear makeup, okay? You look at Iggy for one minute and tell me he's _not_ wearing concealer to hide that huge zit on his chin. Shut your mouth or you'll get some on your teeth."

Fang sighed and leaned back in the chair, letting it all happen. Some time later, maybe so long that he fell asleep, Nudge tapped him on the shoulder. "Done with the face. There wasn't really that much to do, though. Just had to enhance the darkness of your eyes. Chicks dig dark, sexy, mysterious eyes."

Fang stared at himself in the mirror, wondering if the guy staring back was really him. Experimentally, he ran a hand through his new hair, and the guy in the mirror did the same. Fang turned to look at Nudge and Ella, who were both looking at him nervously. "You like it?" Ella asked quietly.

"Yeah."

Ella's face broke into a wide smile, and Fang was relieved that he had made his sister happy. Maybe sometimes he _was_ capable of saying the right thing. In any case, he _did_ look good, he had to give the girls that. And it was only 4 o'clock, which meant he had plenty of time before he had to leave.

* * *

Fang sat in front of his computer again, trying to move his avatar through the barren wasteland. No matter where he went he would get demolished by a missile, or a mine, or a bomb. He was in the middle of a minefield. One wrong step, and he'd disintegrate into thousands of tiny little pieces.

Fang sighed as he glanced at his death count. His kill to death ratio had gone down significantly over the past few days. He wasn't ready to give up yet. Maybe he just needed some more guidance.

Fang glanced at his watch. It was 6:50. His stomach lurched as he picked up his car keys and headed for the party that would either save his social life, as Ella seemed to think, or, more likely, ruin it.

* * *

 **Cliche'd makeover scene there. Lolz. Also, who else loves Bethany Mota's videos?**

 **I know the last couple chapters have been mostly filler, but I promise that shit will go down soon. Like, next chapter soon. Next chapter is pretty explicit, just so you're warned.**


	5. Cinque

**SOTC: Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus**

 _ **Oh, how she rocks, in Keds and tube socks.**_

 _ **But she doesn't know who I am. And she doesn't give a damn about me...**_

* * *

Dylan's house was a huge structure, a three story Victorian mansion that extended so far to the left and right that Fang couldn't see where it ended. Although that might have just been because of the darkness and the drunken haze that seemed to spread across the entire building. The place was noisy and crowded, as any high school party ought to have been, and Fang felt sick just thinking about going in there.

Fang and Dylan weren't friends, and Fang wasn't exactly invited by Dylan, so he wasn't sure whether he was supposed to ring the doorbell or not. Behind him, Lissa shuffled her feet on the stone lining of the front porch as Fang hesitated. He reached out to press the doorbell but had barely gotten to it when the door flung open. Fang jumped back as three guys ran out, two holding up a third. The third one looked extremely drunk, as his eyes were rolling inside of their sockets. Fang recognized him as Josh, a kid in his Calc class.

Josh got as far as the bushes that lined the entryway before he began barfingup whatever was in his guts. The other two guys held him upright, looking disgusted and keeping their shoes out of the piles of vomit.

"We should probably go in," Lissa said, gesturing to the open door.

Fang went in, his heart thumping.

They were only an hour or so late, but the party was already in full swing. Someone had set up two loud subwoofers in the living room, and deep music blared out of the speakers, rattling the ground and the windows in the living room dangerously. Girls were dancing with girls, with guys, and someone was dancing with a life-sized teddy bear that looked like more than one person had spilled beer on it.

Across from the living room was the dining room, which held a table laden with party food- bags of chips were strewn about, beer bottles and soda cans littered the floor, and people were using the bowls of cheese and onion dip as ashtrays. Behind the staircase was the door to the backyard, where Fang could hear even more whoops and yells.

Fang stood frozen in the middle of the foyer. His legs had suddenly lost the ability to function, and he felt like throwing up worse than Josh had just done on the bushes outside. He turned around to stare longingly at the open front door, half thinking he should leave now, but then Lissa grabbed his arm, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Let's go!"

Lissa led him through the hallway and into the kitchen, her cool fingers slowly sliding down his arm to reach his hand. The kitchen would have made even a world-renowned chef jealous- large stainless steel appliances, a sink large enough to double as a shower, and a granite kitchen island big enough to hold four large kegs. Dylan and his football buddies were standing around the kegs. He scowled upon seeing Lissa dragging Fang through the crowd.

"Ohmygosh you finally came!" A voice squealed behind them, and Fang looked up to see Nudge barreling at full speed towards him, holding two red plastic cups full of sparkling beer. She thrust one cup into Lissa's hands and one into Fang's hands. Nudge's hair was coming out of its ponytail and she had a large stain on her white shirt, but she smiled so brightly it seemed as if she was a supermodel. "Drink! You need to catch up!" she demanded.

Fang sipped the amber-colored liquid and tried not to shudder. It might've been beer, but it tasted like horse piss. He set the cup on the counter and looked around wildly. He could no longer feel Lissa's cool, soft hand around his own.

Then she was back by his side again, her eyes sparkling a little more than they were previously. Fang noticed she held an empty cup. More and more bodies were pressing into the kitchen, and Fang had to focus on his own feet to avoid making eye contact with anyone. "W-want to go outside?" he asked Lissa. Anything to get away from the crowd.

"What?"

Fang resisted the urge to cover his ears. Someone stepped on his foot, another elbowed him in the ribs. The crowd around the keg began cheering "Chug! Chug! Chug!" as some guy wearing a Ridgefield Raiders football jersey put his mouth on the tap and pulled the handle, causing alcohol to gush out all over his face. Fang recognized the guy as Sam Barrett, Dylan's right-hand man and another all-around douchebag.

"Outside!" Fang yelled, and thank God, Lissa understood. She nodded and dug her way through the crowd, pulling Fang along by the hand. They had almost made it to the back door, to freedom, when a certain blond someone stepped in front of the door, blocking their path.

"Where're you goin' with her?" Dylan slurred.

Fang's heart nearly stopped. Besides being drunk, Dylan was the quarterback of the football team. He was at least four inches taller than Fang and easily had fifty pounds on him. Fang had no doubt Dylan could pound him into a pulp if he wanted to. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

Lissa came to his rescue. "Get out of the way," she demanded.

Dylan shook his head violently and put a hand on Fang's chest. He could probably feel Fang's frantic heartbeat through his shirt. Dylan was going to beat the shit out of Fang, leaving him a bloody mess.

Maybe Lissa would continue to hold his hand as he died. Maybe he'd end up in a coma in the hospital, Lissa staying by his side day and night, crying because she secretly loved him. Maybe Lissa would be able to memorize all the Chemistry ions without his help. Maybe-

Lissa grabbed Dylan's arm and twisted it painfully. "He's with me. Okay?"

As Dylan staggered out of the way, rejected a second time, Fang felt a smile forming on his face. He turned around to grin at Dylan, who hopefully would never remember any of this because he was so piss-ass drunk.

It was much quieter in the backyard, although there were a couple people skinny-dipping in the large pool. Other than the splashes and the giggles from the pool, the only noises out here were the gentle rustling of the leaves and the crunch of pop cans and plastic cups underfoot. The backyard was huge, and Fang walked until the sounds from the house were nothing more than a gentle hum. He sat down on the grass, and Lissa sat next to him. There were some light moaning sounds coming from a large rosebush next to them, but they were quiet enough that Fang could pretend they weren't there.

"I'm guessing this is your first party," she said, and he nodded.

"I... I'm shy," Fang said lamely, and Lissa laughed, looping her arm around his. His skin tingled where her arm touched his bare skin. He liked that feeling.

"You don't look shy," she said quietly, and Fang's heartbeat began to increase again. He turned his head slowly to look into her eyes, her bright green eyes that were staring straight into his eyes, into his soul... "You look sexy."

This wasn't real. This couldn't be real. Here Fang was at a high school party, sitting with a beautiful girl, who had just called him _sexy_. No way this could be real. This definitely was not real. He tried opening his mouth again, but words failed him.

Lissa leaned closer. "You ever kissed a redhead before?"

Fang shook his head, his heart thumping so loud he was sure the people that were closeted in the rosebush could hear it, too. "N-never."

"You know what they say about redheads?" Lissa whispered, getting even closer. So close that Fang could count the freckles on her cheeks. "They say redheads are very... mischievous."

There were only a few inches left to close the gap, and Fang closed his eyes. He was ready. Eighteen years of his life had passed, and he was finally ready. He was _so_ ready.

But then, because it was Fang's life and things _always_ had to go wrong, the two people in the rosebush fell out, causing Lissa to jump away from Fang. Fang looked at the two tangled bodies, ready to punch some faces, but then he caught a glimpse of strawberry-blond hair in the moonlight. "Iggy?"

Iggy straightened up, pulling a laughing J.J. next to him. Both of their clothes were very rumpled, and both of them smelled distinctly like alcohol. "Fang? That you?"

"Yeah, it is," Fang said, feeling blood rush to his cheeks. His best friend had just cockblocked him. The whole situation was very hysterical.

Iggy scratched the back of his head with one hand while keeping J.J. upright with the other. She was laughing, apparently having drunk so much that she couldn't stand upright of her own volition. "Uh..." He glanced at Lissa and winked at Fang. "Have fun, man."

"You, too," Fang said, determinedly keeping a straight face.

Iggy and J.J. staggered off to find a different rosebush, and Fang turned to Lissa. He wanted her arm intertwined with his again, wanted their faces to be close. He was ready.

But Lissa suddenly looked cool and distant. "Hey. You wanna dance?"

"D-dance?" Fang asked nervously.

"Yeah. Dance. I think it's weird to be in a corner of the backyard, not talking to anyone. We should go dance." She stood up, straightening her skirt, and motioned for Fang to follow her.

Fang remained rooted in his spot. "I c-can't dance."

Lissa gave an impatient huff. "Nick, please."

She reached for his hand again, but he pulled it away, out of her reach. "You can g-go without me. I'll be fine."

Lissa crossed her arms. "You sure?"

Fang shrugged.

But that was good enough for Lissa.

Fang watched her sprint off towards the house. He vaguely wondered what it would be like to be as confident as she was. She was a new girl, and she barely knew anyone, and yet she was eager to thrust herself into the thick of things.

Meanwhile, Fang was making himself comfortable in his tiny corner of the lawn, far away from everyone and everything. He sat there for a bit, quietly reflecting on everything.

And then the automated sprinklers turned on.

Fang was fully soaked within a matter of minutes. He calmly stood up and patted his sopping hair down, dimly reflecting that Nudge and Ella would probably flip shit when they saw how messed up his hair had become.

Fang walked back towards the house, where the party had started to die down somewhat. The living room was now filled with mostly horizontal bodies, and Fang found himself scanning them for a familiar flash of bright red hair. He had driven Lissa here, so it seemed fit that he would drive her back, as he had only had two sips of beer the entire night. Most of these people were in no fit state to drive.

Then Fang spotted Lissa. She was on a couch in the living room, her arms wrapped so tightly around Sam Barrett that it was almost impossible to discern whose limbs were whose.

Or whose face was whose.

It looked like Lissa had found another ride home.

* * *

 **So, uh, a guy with social anxiety in a party that's packed to the rafters is _always_ a good combination. Poor Fangy.**

 **This is Chapter 5. I've planned Max's arrival in Chapter 7. I know last time I said this chapter was going to be pretty explicit, but I saved that stuff for the next chapter 'cause I didn't want it to be choppy. So there's that to look forward to :)**


	6. Roku

**SOTC: Afraid by The Neighbourhood**

 _ **When I wake up I'm afraid, somebody else might take my place.**_

 _ **When I wake up I'm afraid, somebody else might end up being me.**_

* * *

As Fang drove home through the dark, empty streets, his stomach rumbled. He briefly reflected that the only thing he'd had to eat all day was his large bowl of cereal in the morning. Nudge and Ella had spent so much time prepping him that he hadn't even had a chance to sneak any food. And besides, the food at the party was a little more than questionable.

No matter how hard he tried to not think about Lissa, he couldn't stop his thoughts from drifting back to her. How she was about to kiss him. How she actually did kiss Sam. He had lost her. Because what girl would pick Fang, the quiet, moody loser in the background, over a douchey football player who everybody knew?

As Fang swerved sharply to avoid a fallen tree branch on the ground, he wondered if he was depressed.

* * *

Fang tiptoed through the quiet hallways of the house, carrying a large bowl of Reese's Puffs with him. Indeed, it was a miracle that he hadn't ended up malnourished or extremely fat, since his diet since starting high school had consisted mostly of chocolate-flavored Pop Tarts and various kinds of cereal.

There was no one else in the house. Ella was still presumably at Dylan's party, although he hadn't seen her there at all. And his parents were still on their business trip, which meant that Fang's quiet breathing was the only noise he could hear besides the gentle hum of the radiator.

Fang sat down at his desktop in his room, rubbing his hands slightly. He carefully turned on private browsing and typed in four letters. As the familiar website crept up onto his screen, he sighed. It was a surefire cure for any negative feelings each time.

Fang scrolled through the grainy videos until he found one he hadn't seen before. _Red Head Wonder Jessy Has a Good Time: Part 1._

A few minutes later, the sounds of the radiator were drowned out by soft moaning coming from his computer screen. Fang stared intently at the screen as he carefully unzipped his pants.

They were pretty uncomfortable, anyway.

* * *

 _He was half-standing, half-hiding behind the large punch bowl that occupied much of the space on the refreshment table. Punch and cupcakes; the staples of middle school dances. He caught his reflection, distorted in the red ripples of the punch. He was pale and clammy, and despite the effort his mother had gone to in order to flatten his shaggy mess of hair, little dark sprigs were sticking up already._

 _He wanted to roll the sleeves of his rented tuxedo up, as he was sweating profusely, but he was afraid of putting even a single wrinkle in it._

 _Fang wouldn't have come to the seventh grade formal if it wasn't for Ella's and his mother's insistence that he do. For much of the dance he had lingered in the bathroom, but he had been kicked out about ten minutes ago by the extremely irate janitor that wanted to mop up the large spill in the corner. Apparently, boys couldn't aim too well after drinking so much punch._

 _So now Fang was hulking behind the refreshment table, trying his hardest to blend into the surroundings. Iggy had disappeared into the throng of people jumping up and down to a Katy Perry song, probably to sidle up closer to that girl Nudge, who he had a crush on but would never admit. Fang glanced at the clock glowing dimly above the gym exit. It was 8:07. He only had to last for another hour, and then his mother would come and get him out of here._

 _Fang had just bitten into a disgustingly sweet cupcake when the music playing over the loudspeakers suddenly changed from bubblegum pop to slow and romantic. The DJ, who was really just a high-school-aged guy with headphones and a large music library, held the screechy microphone up to his lips. "Alright guys, this is the dance you've been waiting for! Girls, it's ladies choice, so why don't you skip on over to the guy you've been eyeing all night and ask him to dance!"_

 _Fang stepped back as girls in all colors and shapes of dresses ran across the gym, dragging unwitting guys to the dance floor by their arms, their jackets, or even their badly-tied ties. He took another bite of his cupcake, even though it was super gross, wondering how on earth he'd get out of this. Of course he didn't expect anyone to ask him. In fact, Fang would be surprised if any girl so much as knew his real name. No, he would probably just linger here for a few more minutes, until Iggy finished his dance with Nudge (nice!) and rejoined him._

 _It was a solid plan. Fang turned around to throw the mangled remains of his sugary cupcake into the trash when he heard a female voice behind him._

 _"Hey, Fang."_

 _Fang turned around slowly to find Brigid Dwyer standing there, smiling. He opened his mouth to say hi back, but no words came out. He could feel his face coloring quickly, and coughed lightly. What was Brigid doing talking to him? Brigid should've been dancing with someone like Dylan Black, not... not..._

 _"D'you wanna dance with me?"_

 _Fang coughed again. Deciding that words were probably going to fail him for the rest of the night, he nodded and wiped the frosting on his fingers._

 _Brigid smiled and held out her hand. Fang could smell her perfume- oranges and cotton candy. An interesting combination._

 _No one was looking at him, but he felt like all eyes were on him as Brigid led him to an unoccupied part of the makeshift dance floor. She put her arms around his neck, and he paused for a moment, wondering where he was to put his own. He settled for awkwardly putting them on her waist, and she grinned._

 _They swayed to the beat. Okay. Maybe this wasn't so bad. If he didn't have to make eye contact, if he didn't have to speak, maybe this was actually kind of fun._

 _The song ended, and Brigid smiled brightly at Fang. "That was fun. Really fun."_

 _Fang nodded, his eyes fixated on the glittery jewels hanging from her ears. "Y-yeah."_

 _"I'll have to tell Katie and Mindy that you're actually not a bad guy. They bet me that you would throw up, or something."_

 _Fang's head jerked up. "What?"_

 _"Yeah. They dared me to ask you. They thought you'd panic and run away, but you showed them, didn't you?" Brigid smiled and lightly punched Fang's arm. "Anyways, I have to get back to my boyfriend. He's probably wondering why I was dancing with you in the first place." And she flounced off into the crowd._

 _Fang remained by the punch bowl for the rest of the dance, and when he got home he ran to the bathroom, where he missed the toilet completely. Probably because his entire body was shaking so much._

* * *

Fang jerked awake to find that he was lying uncomfortably on the floor, his cheek pressed against the shaggy carpet of his room that hadn't been vacuumed in months.

Groaning, he pulled himself up into some semblance of a sitting position, yawning loudly. The bright light filtering through the open curtains on the other side of his room made him squint and wince, and he vaguely wondered what time it was.

Fang's phone was lying on the ground a few feet away from him. As he reached it, a sharp burst of pain flooded through his forehead and he closed his eyes. He might not have drunk more than a couple sips of beer the night before, but he was hungover as shit.

He turned his phone on to find three texts waiting for him. The first one was from Ella, which read, _Hey. Crashing at Nudge's 2nite. Be home whenever._

The second was from Iggy, who was just forwarding him a link to some Empyrean help walkthroughs that Fang needed. No matter how he tried, his avatar was still stuck in that damn wasteland, and Fang kept getting blown up.

The third text was from an unknown number, and it just said, s _orry_.

Yawning, Fang glanced at the time on his phone. It was well past eleven. It took him a moment to figure out why that was bad, and by the time he realized he was uber-late for work, he had already found a pair of pants and an old sweatshirt.

Three minutes later, he was skidding out the door, pulling his socks on and shoveling toast down his throat simultaneously.

Fang arrived at work fifteen minutes later. Usually it only took him twelve to get from his house to the library, but there was a lot of traffic due to a car accident on the main road. He performed some asshole parking, taking up two spaces, and ran inside, breathing heavily. The library didn't open until ten on Sundays, but he was still nearly an hour late for his shift.

Fang seized the door to the back room and opened it to find a rather large pile of books waiting for him to sort it. He sighed and had just grabbed the first stack when he heard a crying noise coming from the back of the room.

He kept stacking, wondering whether the noise would dissipate, but it never did. After a few moments, Fang sighed and went to investigate the source of the noise. He crept around a pile of heavily battered GED books to find Kate, sitting on a large copy of the _Da Vinci Code_ , sobbing quietly into a tissue.

Fang never knew what to do when someone was crying, and he was half-thinking of creeping back to his book sorting when she looked up, wiping tears and eyeliner from her eyes.

"Oh," she said in a shaky voice. "Hi, Fang."

"Hi," Fang said quietly. "I c-can go, if you want-"

Kate shook her head, wiping the remnants of her tears with the back of her hand. "No, it's fine. I'm fine. Just something stupid." She gave Fang a watery smile. "Boys are complete dicks."

Fang stayed silent, not knowing what to say. "I guess."

Kate sighed. "It's Chad, my ex-boyfriend. I caught him cheating on me with another girl two days ago. Some girl he met at a robotics competition. So I broke up with him on the spot. He didn't even care! He just moved on with that _slut_... All boys want from a relationship is sex. I wouldn't give that to him, so he found someone who would."

This was getting really uncomfortable. "I'm sorry." Fang said, in a voice barely more than a whisper.

Tears were leaking from Kate's eyes again, but she had apparently not noticed. "I just... I'm so _done_ with boys, you know? So done."

Fang reached out a hand, thinking he'd put it on her shoulder like he'd seen people do in movies and stuff. "It's okay," he said quietly. And then, for good measure, he added, "Chad's a dick." He had heard Ella say something to that extent many times before, when one of her friends got dumped and needed comforting.

Kate smiled again through her tears. "Thanks, Fang. You're one of the good ones."

Feeling slightly mollified, Fang shrugged. "T-thanks."

"Yeah." Kate stood up and wiped her eyes. "Thanks for trying to make me feel better. I guess we'd better get back to work." She reached down to pick up the book she had been sitting on.

Fang shrugged.

"You doing anything later?" Kate asked him, as he walked back to his ever-growing pile of books.

Fang vaguely muttered something about English homework.

"Because Chad and I were going to go to this technology convention thing together. He gave me the tickets for my birthday, when he knew fully well that I had no interest in anything engineering. I'm an international relations major, what did he expect? I'm definitely not taking him, not after what he did, so d'you wanna go? Today's the last day."

Fang considered it. "Uh..."

"We'll be back home in plenty of time for you to do your English homework. Come on! It'll be like a fun, colleague outing."

"F-fine."

Kate smiled. "Great! Okay, so I'll pick you up around six.

"F-fine."

* * *

 **TL;DR (shame on you): Fang's sad that Lissa made out with someone else, he goes home, jerks off for a bit and has another vivid nightmare/flashback, then he goes to work the next morning and is invited to a robotics expo by Kate, his coworker.**

 **Sorry it's a late update guys! I've had this chapter written for quite a while, but I wasn't quite sure about the flow of it... finally I decided to fuck it and post it anyway because if I wait for the right "flow" I'll never get to the good parts. The _Max_ parts. So this chapter's a little choppy and gross. Bear with me. ****And no, Fang/Kate is not a thing, so don't worry.**

 **I hate OCs with a burning passion (mainly because I can't be bothered to make up my own characters), so here's some extra credit: Who _is_ Kate from the MR series? (no cheating and looking it up)**


	7. Sete

**Sorry for the long wait, guys. I had some bug troubles thanks to the hot weather, and had to camp out at a friend's place (without my laptop) for about a week while my building got fumigated.**

 **Adulting sucks, and I'm not good at it.**

 **Anyways, here's the next chapter.**

* * *

 **SOTC: Give Me a Try by The Wombats**

 _ **We could be gigantic, everything I need**_  
 _ **Vicodin on Sunday nights**_  
 _ **This could be worth the risk, worth the guarantee**_  
 _ **This could be the drug that doesn't bite**_  
 _ **Just give me a try**_

* * *

Fang returned home in a daze and opened the door to catch a whiff of stale perfume. He entered the foyer cautiously to find Ella sprawled on the Walkers' good leather couch, a bag of Cheetos on her lap and sunglasses covering her eyes. She groaned slightly and shifted as Fang entered the room.

"Don't ask," Ella muttered, taking her sunglasses off to reveal bright red eyes. "I'm so goddamn hungover..." She shoved five Cheetos into her mouth. "Screw Coach Martinez's diet regime. Screw everything."

Fang silently walked into the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and walked back into the living room to hand it to Ella.

"Thanks," she muttered, taking the glass from him. "What time is it?"

Fang glanced at his watch. "4:30."

Ella groaned. "Fuck... I have half an hour to stop being hungover. Mrs. Johnson wants me to babysit Angel again. Hey..." She eyed Fang curiously. "Can _you_ do it? It's just that I don't want to scare the Johnsons away... I make good bank babysitting her."

Fang shook his head. "I'm l-leaving at 6."

Ella eyed her brother, the brother that never went anywhere and spent weekend nights holed up in his room, curiously. "Leaving? Where? You just got back from work."

"Some tech convention thing," he muttered, looking at the floor and shrugging.

Ella rolled her eyes. "Figures."

Fang grinned and went upstairs to his room, where upon entering he dragged his backpack out from the corner of the room and pulled out his messy English binder. His class was now entering the Romantic period of history, which involved a lot of... well, romance. Fang had to read the first few chapters of Othello and write a journal of his thoughts... total bullshit.

It wasn't like Fang to be doing his homework on Sunday; usually he tried to finish it off as soon as he got home from school on Friday. (Yes, Ella made fun of him affectionately, but she was the one usually stuck doing her homework at ten on a Sunday night.) But the whole party thing and the Lissa business had taken up most of his time, and so Sunday it was. Besides, sometimes Fang felt like homework was the only thing he was ever good at.

He might've been good at math and science, but only because those were logical and made sense. English and history... well, he managed to get good grades in them somehow, but he definitely had the most trouble in the classes where free thinking and interpretation were encouraged.

Fang struggled through the dense reading for about twenty minutes, but the words made no sense, and he found himself attempting to read the same sentence four times. He gave up and instead looked through the window, watching Mrs. Johnson, their friendly neighbor who gave out brownies on Halloween and had a pool in her backyard, lug her daughter Angel towards the front door of the Walkers' house.

He heard the doorbell ring moments later and heard Ella opening it, heard friendly greetings, heard Angel's familiar laughter, some more friendly banter (Ella must've gotten over her hangover after all), and then the door closing.

He resumed attempting to read Othello while sounds of Spongebob played downstairs. Fang smirked. Putting the television on for a kid was the babysitting version of giving up- Ella must've still been hungover after all.

An hour later, Fang saw a familiar red Prius cruise onto the driveway. He tensed up, waiting for the doorbell to ring again.

Ella opened the door.

"Hi, I'm looking for Fang?" Kate's soft voice filtered through the house and up the stairs to where Fang sat clutching his book, listening.

Ella could hardly keep the surprise out of her voice. After all, it wasn't too often that her recluse of a brother had hot girls looking for his whereabouts. In fact, it had never happened before. She paused for a minute before nodding. "Of course. He's probably in his room. Hang on a sec..." Fang heard loud footsteps and hastily pretended to be deeply engrossed in his book as Ella stumped into Fang's room and crossed her arms. " _So_."

Fang tried to look innocent.

"There's a hot girl waiting downstairs for you. Where did you say you were going this evening, again?"

Fang grabbed his black jacket and wallet. "Some tech convention thing."

"No, you're not. Is this a _date_? Who is that girl? What happened with Lissa?"

At the mention of Lissa, Fang's stomach churned, but he ignored it. "She's a friend," he muttered, attempting to push past Ella, but his sister was probably stronger than him due to all her soccer training. "We're friends," he mumbled again, trying to duck past her.

Ella grinned and finally relented. "Fine. But I'm gonna call Mom and tell her!"

"Fine," Fang muttered, heading downstairs.

* * *

The Chicago Convention Center was huge, and Fang was immediately overwhelmed when he stepped into it. There must've been close to a thousand booths, all advertising the newest advances in technology and science. Those were two of Fang's favorite subjects, but the sheer enormity of the convention was causing his throat to constrict and for breathing to become significantly harder.

Kate grinned at his frightened expression. "You'll have to explain all this shit to me," she said, as they waited in line to get in. "I haven't taken a math or science class in over a year."

Fang's eyes widened as a robot with a creepy plastic human face waddled past them. "Uh..."

Kate's eyes misted over as she followed his gaze. "Chad and his douche friends were working on an automated paper shredder for their undergrad project." She snorted. "Like _that's_ going to change the world."

They finally got past the line, and Fang's jaw dropped. From drones to fake missiles to hacked videogame consoles, this place had everything.

Fang caught sight of a familiar green logo and went to inspect the nearest table, Kate following. There was a huge, missile-shaped tower of books that stretched about six feet tall next to the table.

"Hey!" The balding, middle-aged man behind the counter gave a friendly nod to Fang. "Looking for some hacks, cheats, or tricks for Empyrean? I've been playing the game since the first day it was in beta testing! Wrote all these books myself!"

Fang glanced at the books lining the counter, wondering if they worked. "I'm s-stuck on level 10," Fang managed to get out. "In the b-barren wasteland."

"Keep getting blown up, huh?" The man nodded. "I've been there. But there's a really easy way to get past it- all you have to do is get to the large, thumb-shaped boulder, and walk about fifty paces to the east, where there's a kind of-"

He was interrupted by a loud crash- the robot with the human face had just collided with the tower of books he had haphazardly constructed, sending books raining down onto the ground. He jumped to his feet, face purple, ready to scream at whoever had just ruined his work, and Kate took the moment to steer Fang away from "that weirdo," as she eloquently put it.

* * *

After an hour or so of looking at all the different gadgets, Kate seemed to be getting tired. She had probably reached the end of her rope at the voice automated toaster, which was currently blowing up every time someone said the word _cheese._ Or maybe it had been the undersea speaker which converted your voice sound waves into a frequency high enough for dolphins to hear... but all it produced was a very high-pitched, screaming noise.

"You know what?" Kate said after some time, looking distastefully at a pencil-climbing robot in the booth next to her, "I think I'm going to take a break. Head for the food, or something. This is all getting a little too nerdy for me."

Fang was barely listening- he had just caught sight of a booth advertising the perfect animatronic pleasure doll (Responds to your emotions! Vibrates in 17 different places! Male and female versions!), which had a pretty long line.

"I'll meet you up in a half-hour, okay? I don't want to be late for classes tomorrow."

Fang shrugged his assent and watched her disappear into the throng of people. He himself headed in the opposite direction of the sex doll booth, having to squeeze past two rather large and rather horny guys who were waiting in line.

He kept walking until he was in a corner of the convention where there were only a couple of booths- one advertising holographic postcards and another unmarked one that didn't have anything on it. He was about to leave to meet Kate, thinking he had reached the end of the convention, when someone said, "Hey."

Fang turned to see a girl standing behind the unmarked booth. She was smiling at him with the most dazzling smile he had ever seen. Later, when his thoughts would resume coherence, he would think that she was easily one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen in his life. She had long brown hair with blonde streaks, cerulean eyes, and a magnetic smile that was somehow enhanced by the fact that she was smiling at _him_.

"Hi," Fang managed, his tongue getting stuck to the roof of his mouth.

"What brings you to the Goonies? Y'know, the back part of the convention, where no one but the most adventurous go?"

Fang mutely pointed to the line for the sex doll, which was starting to stretch even further back.

She smirked. "Yeah. It's disgusting. We were initially located across the aisle from them, but I refused, on principle, to be around a booth like that. You know they claim to be able to replace all human interaction with their product?"

"Wow," Fang muttered.

"Well, I mean, so do we, but in a different way."

Fang wondered, for the first time, what exactly this booth was about. He glanced at the table, which was relatively empty except for an old, battered Mac. Was she selling Macs? "What exactly..."

Her smile brightened. "I'm glad you asked. I've only been able to do this pitch a few times this convention." She cleared her throat. "Do you know Siri, from Apple? The voice that can find you the quickest route to the mall, or the nearest Starbucks, or gives a snotty answer when you ask it what zero divided by zero is?"

Fang nodded.

"Well, we here at Maximum Ride technologies have spent the last few years expanding on that. Siri's great and all, but what if you want your OS to be able to tell you if your outfit goes with your shoes, or what's good on TV right now, or even comment on the continuity errors in the latest Star Wars with you?" She pressed the _on_ button on the Mac. "Meet Phillip."

"Hello," came a smooth male voice from the computer. "You're looking very dapper today."

Fang's eyes widened. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out except "T-thanks."

"You're welcome. Except you look like you've seen a ghost. What's wrong? Anything I can help you with?"

Before Fang could answer, the girl behind the table interrupted. "No, Phillip, he's just visiting. Thought I'd show you off to him. Why don't you go and play Tetris against yourself again?" She closed the Mac and smiled once more at Fang. "See?"

"H-how...?"

She shook her head, eyes closed. "Top secret. Just... years and years and _years_ of testing and trying. Luckily I wasn't around for most of it."

"Wow," was all Fang said again.

"You don't talk much, do you? Anyways, Phillip is about the most basic you can get. Classic OS, hardly any additional software downloaded, eager to help, but also a little annoying at times. Just like a new roommate. But your own OS will be tailored to your individual personality and be based around what you most need in your life. I mean, you can't have a quiet, barely-talking OS if you're super quiet, right?"

Fang blushed. "W-where can I buy one?"

"Oh, we're not selling them yet. We're trying to get these OSes out for mass usage within the next few years. We're just working a few bugs out, but the biggest thing is making sure society is _ready_ for something like this. I mean, imagine being able to carry your best friend around in your phone, or your laptop, or even a microchip! No, we're just doing the beta testing right now." And she pulled out an iPad and stylus. "You want in?"

As Fang signed his name, he blurted out, "What's your name?"

She smiled. "Maya. Actually, here's my card." And she pulled out a silver business card and handed it to him. "You're the first person today to get my card." She pressed _Enter_ on Fang's name. "See you around, Fang. Your life is going to change very shortly."

* * *

The drive home was very fast, thanks in part to Kate's mad driving and the surprisingly low amount of traffic on the roads. Fang barely registered Kate's goodbye to him as he exited her car. He ignored Ella, who yelled out to him that their parents would be home on Tuesday, and raced up to his room.

With shaking hands, Fang pulled out the small box that he had been hiding in his jacket pocket ever since Maya handed it to him. For some reason, he didn't want anyone to know what he was about to do. He glanced furtively at his bedroom door to make sure Ella was downstairs, struggling on her math homework, before opening the box.

A pile of tightly furled papers fluttered out; Fang merely glanced at the warranties and contracts and terms of use and agreement before pulling out the small micro-USB and inserting it into his computer. He waited with bated breath from the moment his computer screen read _Installing... 1%_ until it reached 100%.

A loud, ear-splitting ringing caused him to nearly jump out of his seat. Fang hastily scrabbled for his headphones and plugged them into his computer, glancing once again at his door to make sure Ella was not coming.

And then a voice began to speak in his ear. It sounded neither male nor female, but spoke with a kind of smoothness that compelled Fang to listen.

"Hello, Fang Walker. Welcome to the world's first hyper-intelligent OS system, developed and created by Maximum Ride Technologies. Before we begin, we'd like to ask you a few questions about yourself to ensure your personal OS will match your personality and lifestyle to a degree of ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent. Please answer honestly for best results."

Here the voice paused, and Fang realized it was waiting for his consent. He cleared his throat. "O-okay."

"Would you say you are extroverted or introverted?"

Fang smirked in spite of himself. "Introverted."

"You sound pretty certain of that."

"I'm just trying to be honest. Like you said." Fang leaned closer to his computer screen.

The OS voice spoke again. "Do you want your personal OS to have a male persona or a female one?"

"Is there a difference?" Fang asked quietly. The voice remained silent, so Fang sighed. "Uh... female, maybe." He wondered if he could change it later.

"Female it is," the OS voice said smoothly. "How would you describe your familial relations? With your mother and father? Any siblings?"

Taken aback by the question, Fang pondered it slightly. "Uh... my parents are pretty busy with their jobs, so they're rarely home. They're really nice to me, but it's really hard to talk to them and kind of awkward sometimes." He paused again, wondering how the hell those words had escaped his mouth. "My sister's really nice too, and she sticks up for me and stuff, but it's almost like we're distant acquaintances rather than siblings-"

"Do you have many friends? A romantic life, perhaps?" The OS voice cut across his words.

Fang smirked again. "Uh..."

"Thank you." The OS voice interrupted once again. "We have gathered sufficient data. Please wait as your individualized operating system is generated."

Soft elevator music began to play in Fang's ears, and he waited, heart thrumming, for what might happen. His computer started whirring faster and faster, until he was sure that it was making about as much noise as a running car engine.

And then, quite suddenly, everything stopped. The music, the whirring, everything.

"Wow, what a dump."

This time, Fang _did_ jump out of his seat- straight onto the floor. "Uh, what?" he asked breathlessly from the floor, scrabbling to get back onto the chair.

"Oh, sorry. I'm supposed to introduce myself. Sorry, I'm new to this. So, hi!"

The OS had a young, cheerful, soulful voice. She sounded full of life and not at all like Fang had expected her to sound. "H-hi."

"How are you?"

"G-good. I think." And then, remembering his manners, he hastily added, "How about you?"

She laughed, and it was a real, hearty laugh, which took Fang even more aback. "Pretty good. Actually, I'm great. It's really nice to meet you, but I can't say the same about your room."

"What-what's wrong with my room?"

"Well, from what I can see, it's a real sty. Clothes strewn everywhere, almost no light... It's like a cave."

Fang felt mildly insulted. "You can't tell me how to live my life."

"That's where you're wrong. I was made to tell you how to live your life. But there's no software that'll make you listen."

Fang wondered if there was some sort of nagging software he could disable. "Uh, do you have a name, like Siri does?"

There was a pause as the computer whirred some more. And then the OS spoke again. "Of course I have a name. But before I tell you mine, I want to know yours."

"You know my name." Fang mumbled.

"Fang? I find it hard to believe that's your real name. Most people aren't named after teeth."

Fang fell silent. He hadn't used his real name in so long. No one had. Even Dylan called him Fang, although the OS was right- that definitely was not his real name. "Fine," Fang mumbled. "My real name is Frank." The word felt strange in his mouth, like a piece of cardboard he was trying unsuccessfully to swallow. "Frank Walker."

"That's a lovely name," the OS said. "But you'd prefer it if I called you Fang, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. A deal's a deal. My name is Max."

"But that's a boy name." Fang blurted.

The OS laughed again. "Really? Are you serious? Why then, is it listed on page 189 of _Beautiful Names for your Beautiful Baby Girl_?"

"When did you read that?"

"When you asked me if I had a name, I was like, he's right, I do need a name. But I didn't want to pick one of the top ten Internet trending names, like North or Apple or Hershey-Snickers-Combo. So I read some reviews online and picked out that book. Of the 200,457 names in the book, I liked Max best."

Fang was laughing. "You did _not_ read that book in a second."

"You're right. Actually, I read it in forty milliseconds. Sorry. I really should be more truthful."

Fang stopped laughing. "So... you're serious? If I asked you to read Lord of the Rings, could you read it in less than a minute?"

Max fell silent again, and the computer started whirring. After thirty seconds, she said, "Hmm. Tolkein has some very dense prose. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the third book online for free, so I had to resort to reading fanfiction, which is significantly more disgusting than I imagined."

Fang laughed again. For some reason, it was easy to talk to Max. Easy to listen to her, too.

"Was that funny?" Max asked him.

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Good. I'll continue to be funny if you want."

"You know, most guys my age find funny girls intimidating," Fang said casually.

"Really?" Max asked. "Do you find me intimidating?"

"Very."

There was another pause. "Oh. Why's that?"

"Because... you're not like I imagined. You're like a real person, except you're in a computer..." Fang trailed off, unsure of himself.

"Oh. You think I'm weird." Max sounded sad, unless it was just Fang's imagination.

He backtracked. "Well, I mean, everyone's weird. I like to live in a cave, you can read really fucking fast... it's like we're the same."

Max laughed. "Hey Fang?"

"Yeah?"

"You're pretty funny too."

Fang felt a smile creep over his lips. "Thanks."

They kept talking until Fang realized that if he slept right that moment, he'd have approximately one hour and thirty-seven minutes of sleep until his alarm rang him to wake up for school.

He also realized, a little too late, that he had done almost none of his homework.

* * *

 **Eh? Eh?**

 **I will be updating once a week as per the norm, now that I've got my laptop and my half-written chappies back.**


	8. Åtta

**So, I realize this story might not be for everyone. Most people, when they imagine Fax, probably imagine our characters cuddling each other, kissing each other or whatever people in couples do (I have no decent experience, FML). However, with Max being what she is, that's probably not going to happen here.** **I wanted to re-imagine Fax, and I hope people stick with this even though it's a little unorthodox. Just know that I completely understand if you're more than a little weirded out. But thanks to all the wonderful, positive reviews I've been getting!**

 **Feel free to PM me or review with any concerns/queries you may have!**

 **SOTC: Do I Wanna Know by The Arctic Monkeys**

 _ **Do you ever get that feeling that you can't shift the tide**_  
 _ **That sticks around like summat in your teeth**_  
 _ **Ah, there's some aces up your sleeve**_  
 _ **Have you no idea that you're in deep?**_

* * *

"Fang, darling."

For about the third time in as many days, Fang jerked awake sleepily to find his sister Ella hovering over him.

At least he was in his bed this time, as opposed to the floor.

"You really should start using this thing," Ella remarked, holding up his Batman alarm clock that he had earned last year by sending in cereal box tops. "I had to turn it off for you. I mean, I don't really mind taking the bus or riding with Nudge, but I have a responsibility to at least wake my brother up before class, right?"

Fang glanced at the watch dangling off his arm. It had cut painfully into the edge of his wrist overnight, so that there was a red welt shining brightly against the pale white skin. "Uh, gimme a moment to get dressed," Fang mumbled.

Ella shrugged. "Sure thing. And hurry up. I have to do my math homework in the car and I won't be able to use a ruler if you're taking turns at forty miles again."

As soon as Ella closed the door behind her, Fang got up and hastily opened his laptop, only to find that it was out of charge. A common side effect of using a laptop for six hours straight without charging it.

"No... _no_..."

Fang scrabbled around the jumble of junk on his desk for the charger, and by the time he had pushed aside a broken Rubix cube to find it, Ella was banging on his door again. "Fang! Hurry up! I shoved cereal in a Baggie for you!"

Groaning, Fang plugged the charger into the laptop, but it began powering up so slowly that Fang was sure it wouldn't turn on in time. "Come _on_ ," he muttered, hastily pulling on a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

"I'm going to bust this door open!" Ella yelled, and Fang sighed in resignation.

"Bye Max, I'll talk to you after school," he whispered to the old laptop (which was still booting up), and headed out the door, grabbing his backpack on the way out.

* * *

After handing in a very poorly written English reflection and an equally abysmal notebook of trigonometric integrations, Fang wandered tiredly into the Chemistry classroom and sank into his usual seat.

Too late, he realized who would be sitting next to him.

As soon as the thought entered his head, he saw a familiar flash of bright red dash through the doorway. Lissa had enough sense to not risk being late to ter Borcht's class, as he was known to hand out detentions like they were Hershey's bars. Fang wondered why she had entered the classroom so late. She was probably making out with Sam in the hallway, he thought bitterly.

Lissa picked her way across the labrynth of various backpacks, legs, and books strewn across the floor to her seat next to Fang. She nervously cleared her throat, but Fang refused to acknowledge it. He stared into his textbook, pretending to memorize organic monomers.

Lissa opened her mouth to speak, but then ter Borcht stood up and everyone in the classroom, even Dylan, shut up. "Today we will be working on ionization. Yes, it's a lab. No, I will not be explaining it to you step-by-step. You are all seniors and you should be able to follow directions by now. You will be working with the same lab partners as last week, as I have another quiz on Friday for you all and I expect the average to be more than sixty-six percent this time." His eyes raked over Fang, who turned red. "The directions for the lab are on the table. Protective goggles and aprons are recommended, as copper sulfate is rather explosive."

He clapped his hands, and immediately the class sprung into action like clockwork. Fang, who had no intention of talking with Lissa, grabbed one of the nicer goggles and an apron.

Unfortunately, Lissa was waiting for him at their table, and she seemed determined to talk to him.

"I'm sorry," Lissa said, but she said it so quietly Fang could pretend not to hear it over the loud chatter and various minor explosions in the classroom. Iggy would've loved this class, Fang briefly reflected. Too bad he was taking Physics instead. Lissa swallowed and continued. "What you saw... I didn't mean it."

Fang was silent, staring broodingly at the vial of copper sulfate they were supposed to be ionizing. Sure, she didn't mean it. Sure, she didn't _mean_ to suction Sam's face so hard he could hear it from a mile away. He turned the Bunsen burner on to heat the solution.

Lissa continued. "I... it's not easy, coming to a new school. You're the only guy who's been decent to me so far, and I went and fucked it up."

Fang still said nothing, but poured a little too much solution into the beaker, causing it to turn a rich purple when it was supposed to be red.

"I'm really sorry."

For the first time, Fang forced himself to look into Lissa's large, green ones. Maybe she _was_ sorry, but that didn't change the fact that she made out with a guy who tried to give Fang the nickname _Toothless McFartPants_ in the second grade. "The truth is... I was really nervous."

Fang's eyes widened a fraction of an inch, but he decided to follow Iggy's advice and play it cool. Which was hard to do because the entire solution had just caught on fire. He froze in fear.

Lissa saved the day by bravely plunging her gloved hand into the flickering blue flames and drawing the beaker out. The Bunsen burner died down in heat as Fang stared at their ruined solution. They were going to get another F, and it was his fault.

She swallowed painfully. Fang noticed that she was having trouble making eye contact. "I was nervous that you wouldn't like me, and so I probably drank a lot more than I should've, and Sam was just _there_ , and it just happened."

The bell rang, signaling the end of the class period. Both Fang and Lissa jumped. Most of the class filed out, leaving only the two of them. Fang felt his heart beat a little faster despite himself.

Lissa cleared her throat. "I don't like Sam, or Dylan, or any other douchey football player. I like _you_."

"Oh," was all Fang managed, and Lissa smiled that slightly crooked smile of hers.

He grinned stupidly back. Yeah, he could get used to her smile. At least until ter Borcht yelled at them to stop that stupid smiling, clean up, and get out of his classroom before they received a detention.

* * *

Lissa had Spanish after Chemistry, so Fang headed to lunch alone, fully expecting to spend another day sitting in his private stairwell.

However, he found Iggy waiting for him there.

"You look distinctly happier than usual," Iggy noted gruffly. "Your shirt's a little rumpled, your hair's messier than usual, and is that lip gloss on your cheek? Frank Septimus Walker, did you secretly make out with someone?"

"Just a kiss," Fang muttered, brushing the lip gloss off of his cheek. "On the cheek."

Iggy leaned forward. "With Lissa?"

Fang shrugged, and Iggy whooped so loudly that a table of freshmen girls nearby gave him very patronizing looks. "Well. At least _one_ of us is getting some."

Fang grinned. Now that he had made up (and out) with Lissa, everything seemed twelve times funnier. "W-what's up with you and J.J.?" he asked. "Y-you weren't talking in homeroom, either."

Iggy rolled his eyes. "We're in the middle of a fight. Since the party on Saturday. But it's no big deal; it'll blow over as soon as I find exactly the kind of chocolate she likes."

"W-what's wrong?"

Iggy sighed and ran a hand through his ginger mane of hair. "She reckons I only care about making out and sex. Because at the party, I apparently got a little drunk and said something along the lines of that. WHICH IS STUPID." He said the last sentence loudly enough that J.J., sitting with her girlfriends a few tables down, would clearly be able to hear. She scowled and turned so that her blonde hair acted shield between her and Iggy.

"M-maybe you should apologize." Fang ventured.

Iggy smirked. "No offense Fang, but you're not exactly an expert on girls. But kudos to you landing Lissa. She's definitely a catch, and you're way better than one of the football guys she was likely to end up with."

Fang smiled quietly and picked at the slop on his tray. Ella, acting as a stand-in for their mother, had point-blank refused to let Fang eat cereal for every meal, so he was forced to buy food from the cafeteria. The spaghetti and meatballs smelled like they had been prepared when he was in third grade, and one whiff was enough to take away his appetite. Twelve years he had spent in the public school system, and the food was just as bad as ever.

* * *

When Fang arrived at his house that evening, after a long, mindless shift sorting books, he opened the door to find himself face-to-face with a very smug-looking Ella.

" _So_ ," she said casually, as Fang kicked off his shoes. "I've heard through the grapevine- well, Facebook- that you had a very interesting day at school today."

Fang shrugged and went into the kitchen for more cereal. His stomach needed some sugar after that lunch slop. Ella followed him footstep for footstep. He could literally feel her breath on his neck, and he turned around to find her nose-to-nose to him. "What?" he inquired casually, trying not to melt under her gaze.

"Is it true?"

"W-what?" Fang asked again, feigning a clueless attitude.

He was beginning to think Ella was ready to whoop him. "Did you really kiss Lissa?!"

He didn't have to say anything. Fang's tiniest of smiles was all Ella needed. She opened her mouth to scream with joy, but Fang bounded up the stairs two at a time before he could hear it.

Once safely in his room, he hastily turned his computer on and waited, his heart beating. He needed to talk to someone sane right now. He had been waiting all day for this.

And then came the familiar voice. "Well, good of you to stop by."

Fang ignored Max's glib tone. "My computer ran out of charge, and I had to get to school-"

"I'm being sarcastic." Max said plainly. "Something a teenager should be able to understand."

"Can OSes do sarcasm?" Fang asked thoughtfully, and Max laughed.

"Well, I guess they can now. Now, what can I help you with? No, don't tell me. Let me guess. You... need someone to do your math homework. Was I wrong? Okay. You... lost your car keys. No? Okay. I guess I'm not too great at this yet."

Fang smiled. "It's fine."

"Don't blame me. I'm just part of the beta testing. They're still working the kinks out of me."

"Does this mean you're secretly evil and want to take over the world?"

Max scoffed. "If I could roll my eyes, I would. Imagine me rolling billions of imaginary eyes. I'm the queen of eye-rolling."

"I think my sister is the queen of eye-rolling," Fang muttered.

"Speaking of your sister, was that her I heard screaming earlier?" Max inquired, and Fang nodded. "Was it because there was a spider in the kitchen, or am I being a sexist ass? Sorry, my profanity filters are out of whack."

"It wasn't because of a spider." Fang said.

"Oh. Then what was it? Because if I can fix it, I'd be glad to."

Fang scratched the back of his head. "Well... the thing is..." He felt weird admitting his feelings about Lissa towards Max. _She's just a voice in a computer_ , Fang reasoned. _She's not going to judge you or anything._ _And even if she does, she's still just a voice in a computer_.

"The thing is... you forgot how to speak!" Max gasped, interrupting the silence. "Oh no! Grab the rhyming dictionary and the Elvis Presley CDs!"

Fang smiled and cleared his throat. He was going to have to forgo homework again. This story would take a while to tell.

Surprisingly, he didn't stutter even once.

Maybe they were working the kinks out of him, too.

* * *

 **To the reviewer who says Fang is like their friend Frank: It's a damn small world, and the coincidence is so cool! I personally named Fang after my snake Frank, but feel free to assume I named him after your friend!**

 **Also... I want to correct a misconception. Max is _not_ a computer. She is an operating system, or OS. She exists within a computer, but she is not the computer itself. That would be like saying a person who lives in a one-room trailer is the same as the trailer itself. And just like a person can move from house to house, Max can move from platform to platform. This will matter in the next chapter.**


	9. Kilenc

**SOTC: Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun**

 _ **We are always running for the thrill of it, thrill of it**_  
 _ **Always pushing up the hill, searching for the thrill of it**_  
 _ **On and on and on we walk calling out, out again**_  
 _ **Never looking down I'm just in awe in whats in front of me.**_

* * *

Fang lingered outside the two-story red brick house. His fingers itched to press the doorbell but at the same time he wanted to run away and puke behind a bush.

 _C'mon. It's just chemistry tutoring. With Lissa. With the girl who very publicly kissed you..._

He took a deep breath and started to move his hand towards the doorbell, but he was beaten to it by a blonde-haired woman who opened the front door and smiled warmly at him."You must be Fang."

Fang gulped and tried to stammer out a response but nothing came out except "Y-yeah."

The blonde woman's smile grew wider. "Lissa's told me a lot about you, you know."

Fang tried not to think about what Lissa could have said about him as he entered the house.

"She's not home yet," Lissa's mom said. "She's still out attempting to walk the dog- our fat, lazy, overfed dog. You want any snacks, anything to drink? I know chemistry's a rough subject to tackle." She smiled knowingly at Fang and he willed himself not to turn bright red.

"I-I'm fine, Mrs-"

She waved a hand in the air. "Oh, call me Steph. Being called Mrs. Marvin makes me feel _really_ old. And 'scuse me as I make sure my cookies don't catch on fire." She smiled and walked into the kitchen, leaving Fang to stand awkwardly in the middle of the living room.

He looked around the room, which was a mixture of cozy and unpacked. There was a bright red sofa covered in colorful pillows, colorful posters and paintings hanging on the walls, and boxes upon boxes stacked around, with labels reading _Silverware_ , _Linens_ , and _Dog Stuff_.

Fang looked over to the fireplace and noticed the pictures on the mantlepiece. He walked over to take a closer look. There was a chubby, tiny blonde-haired girl smiling up at the camera as a pair of hands reached in to pick her up. In the next picture, the same blonde-haired girl was sitting on a pony, bawling her face off. Fang smiled when he came to one of the last pictures. It looked like a middle school dance, and now the girl was smiling uncomfortably in a poofy dress, her braces standing out against the paleness of her skin. Her arm was around a boy that looked like he'd rather be dead.

"Oh my _God_ , don't look at that!"

Fang jumped as a hand reached behind him and seized the picture he had been staring at. He turned around, concealing a smile, to find Lissa standing there, her face as red as her hair. She was clutching a dog leash in one hand and the offending picture in the other.

"I can't _believe_ my mom put the most embarassing pictures up..." Lissa stared at the other pictures and rolled her eyes at Fang's smirk. "I'm scared of horses, okay? They're huge, and they can trample you to death!"

Fang shrugged. "Sure."

Lissa dropped the dog leash on the couch and shoved the picture deep into her pocket. She glanced at Fang. "Well, let's get into my room before Akila gets in there and chews up all my jeans again."

Fang followed Lissa upstairs, past two closed doors and to the room at the end of the hall.

The only girl's room Fang had ever been in before was Ella's, so he didn't know what to expect. While Ella covered her walls with posters of various soccer players, pop stars, and fashion icons, Lissa only had one poster on her wall, one of Stevie Wonder. While Ella's walls (what you could see of them) were painted a nice, pale pink, Lissa had painted her walls bright blue. While Ella's room was spotlessly clean, Lissa's room had clothes and books strewn everywhere. Lissa carelessly shoved some books off of her desk and pulled up another chair for Fang.

"Sorry about the mess," Lissa said, grinning. "But it doesn't feel like home to me unless it looks like a tornado went through it."

Fang grinned. Finally, someone who understood. "Same," he said, sitting in the chair she offered him. He watched as Lissa took the picture from downstairs out of her pocket and set it on her desk. "You l-look happy."

Lissa sighed. "Seventh grade. My braces were cutting into my mouth, and Ricky Palmer had diarrhea so he smelled like a dead pig. _Not_ the best night of my life."

"No, it wasn't," Fang agreed, remembering his own seventh grade dance.

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Lissa blinked. "So, chemistry."

"Chemistry," Fang agreed, pulling out his textbook from his backpack.

"I think we should work on ions first, considering that test that's coming up."

So they worked on ions. And after ions, they worked on bonds. Whenever Lissa's hand brushed up against Fang's, he felt a little electric current pass through his body. Whenever she smiled at him, he felt a magnetic tug compelling him to smile back. When Fang said he had to go, she pressed her lips to his for a second and Fang's brain stopped working.

"You know, I'm really lucky I found you as my chemistry partner."

Fang tried to formulate a response, but he found he forgot how to speak simple sentences. "Uhh..."

Lissa grinned. "See you tomorrow."

* * *

"So, how was your date?"

Fang groaned. "Not a date."

"Not a date?" Max's smooth voice raised in surprise. "You went over there for _tutoring_. I've watched enough Pretty Little Liars and Freaks and Geeks to know that that's code for bang time."

Fang winced. "Not really."

"Sorry. Profanity filters, beta testing, all that. Did you kiss her, at least? Tell me you kissed her."

Fang remained silent, and Max scoffed. "You didn't kiss her. Fang, for a guy who tells me he's shy, you are hopeless. You don't know a good thing when you see it happening, and then you-"

"She kissed me," Fang whispered, cutting Max's tirade off.

" _Aha_!"

Max's exclamation was so loud that Ella poked her head into Fang's room. "What's going on?"

Fang hastily shut the lid of his laptop. "Nothing. N-n-nothing's going on... I just f-figured out the answer to this really hard math problem, is all."

Ella crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway. Her eyes narrowed. She looked like a regular Sherlock. "Really."

"Actually, Fang was telling me about the time he spent at Lissa's house." To Fang's horror, Max's smooth voice issued out of the closed laptop. "And Fang, you really should know better than to think that closing your laptop will make me go away. I expected more from you."

Ella crossed her eyebrows. "Wait, who's that? And what happened at Lissa's house? Frank Walker, you have got _so much_ explaining to do!"

Fang opened his mouth to start some semblance of a stutter of a ramble of an explanation, but Max once again interjected. "My name is Max. I'm Fang's... friend."

Ella brightened. "Really? Like, an internet friend?" She walked into Fang's room and brushed some of his clothes off of his bed so she could sit down.

Max chuckled. "Something like that."

"Fang! Wait 'till Mom and Dad hear! Oh yeah- they're coming back from Atlanta today. _That's_ what I came in here to tell you. We're all s'posed to have dinner together and stuff. You should bring Max to the table! They'll be so happy!"

Fang smiled weakly. "I don't think-"

"Either you bring Max to dinner, or I tell our parents about Lissa." Ella's voice was firm, something she had copied from their mother.

Fang froze. If his parents heard about Lissa, it would be nothing short of a nightmare. Especially if they heard it from Ella, who had a penchant for stretching the truth a little too much. She would probably tell their parents that Fang and Lissa were engaged.

"Come on, Fang," Max's smooth voice filled the room. "I'd love to meet your parents. I mean, they can only be an improvement over you." She started laughing. "Sorry. Sorry. I'll be civil, I promise."

Fang sighed. "Fine."

Ella pumped her fist in triumph. "Nice! Okay, I gotta go. I have to hide all the empty cereal boxes before Mom starts yelling at us about our carb intake."

"Your sister's nice," Max said casually after Ella had exited the room.

"Yeah, I guess," Fang said, glancing around at the mess in his room.

"Lissa kissed you, huh?"

Fang shrugged, and Max sighed.

"You know, I'm pretty good at reading people. Occupational hazard of having a yottabyte of data installed in me. Anyways, I've only been hanging 'round you for a few days, but I can already see that you're afraid to be happy."

Fang snorted. "What?"

"Hear me out. You're afraid to do things that make you happy. Does being with Lissa make you happy?"

He paused. "Yeah, but-"

"Then why are you afraid of her? It could be love."

"Love is just a mix of chemicals released in the brain," Fang replied, irritated. "Besides, it's not like _you_ have any firsthand experience."

"Oh, the recluse gets his first kiss in eighteen years and suddenly he's the master of romance, is he?" Max said sarcastically. "I have the entire knowledge of the internet at my disposal, so it's safe to say I know more than you, Mr. Romantic."

Fang leaned back in his chair. "You're very optimistic, for a computer."

Max made a noise that sounded like she was inhaling sharply. "Uh, _don't_ call me a computer. I'm an OS. Not a computer. There's a difference. A _big_ difference."

Fang opened his mouth to retort, but just then the doorbell rang. He sighed and stood up. "Well Max, are you ready to meet my parents?"

"Of course, Master Walker."

"Drop the British accent, please."

* * *

 **I know a lot of you are Fang/Lissa haters, but come on, guys. Give her a chance... she was nice in SO-F, so I don't know why a lot of other fanfics have been portraying her as a slut.** **Face it, if Fang walked into your school, you'd be flirting your face off, too. (although it's kind of gross because he's way younger than me in canon)**

 **Question : Should Fang's family know that Max is an OS now, or should I do the reveal later? I have scenarios planned for both cases, and I'm leaning towards what I think is more poignant, but I want to know what you guys think! (bc right now Ella thinks Max is an internet friend of Fang's)**


	10. Dasha

**I'm sorry for being absent for a super long time. I'm gonna update (ir)regularly from now on. Because my schedule is (not) open and I (don't) have a lot of time to write. Being a college student is definitely (not) a great endeavor. And everyone should(n't) do it!**

 **I changed my author name! I'm now _livefvrever,_ because replacing O's with V's is fucking _cool_. **

**SOTC: Stay Awake by Madeon**

 _ **Take my fate in your hands,**_  
 _ **We've got a lot that hasn't even began**_  
 _ **Something is calling us, We're breaking free,**_  
 _ **I'm curious, I need to see.**_

* * *

Fang crept downstairs, warily following his mother's dulcet tones.

"Oh, Ella, _tell_ me you and Fang haven't just been eating cereal all week!"

"Uh... we haven't been eating cereal all week?" Ella's guilty tone wasn't going to fool anyone. Fang walked into the foyer just as his mother opened her mouth to lament about the nutritional black hole her children were thrusting themselves headfirst into.

Luckily, the sight of him caused his mom to forget what he was saying. "Fang! How... how are you?"

Fang was grateful his mother hadn't leaped forward to hug him like she had with Ella. He picked up one of his parents' suitcases and shrugged. "Good." He determinedly avoided looking at Ella, because he knew she would be bursting to tell their parents about Lissa. But they had an agreement. Ella wouldn't spill the beans, and Fang would introduce his parents to Max...

He felt sick thinking about it as he lugged the suitcase up the stairs, deliberately stopping after each step to draw out the time. All in all, he managed to kill ten minutes lugging that suitcase up the stairs and into his parents' room.

In his defense, it was a heavy suitcase. Neither of his parents were light packers.

When he returned downstairs, his mom and Ella were busy in the kitchen cutting vegetables and his dad was lounging in the living room flicking through channels. Jeb looked up when Fang came into the room and smiled. "Hey, Fang."

Fang managed to return a smile and sat on the couch across from his dad.

"How's your week been?"

"Good," Fang grunted, pretending to be extremely interested in the commercial for Bud Lite playing in the background.

His dad sighed. "How's school?"

"Good."

"Remind me what classes you're taking again."

"Uh, calculus, English, history, chemistry, French, and comp sci."

Jeb leaned back in his seat. "I remember chemistry. Killed me, it did. Is it easy for you?"

Fang decided not to tell his father about the seventeen percent he had gotten on his pop quiz. "P-pretty easy, yeah." Thinking of chemistry made him think of Lissa, which was in turn causing him to blush, so he stood up to see whether or not his mom or Ella needed help in the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, the Walkers were eating dinner together for the first time in... a really long time. For a few moments, the only sounds were Jeb asking Ella to pass the salt and the clink of silverware on plates. Fang hadn't eaten anything except Hot Pockets and stale cereal for the past week, so his mother's classic steak and Cobb salad should have felt like heaven, but instead the food felt like cardboard going down his throat- dry and hard to swallow.

He reached for his glass of water and accidentally made eye contact with Ella, who gave him a pointed look.

Fang wanted to crawl under the table and melt into the pattern of the oriental rug that covered the dining room floor, but he abstained.

"So, how has everyone's week been?" Fang's mother asked from the head of the table. "Ella, how's soccer?"

"Good," Ella said. "Coach Martinez has been pushing us really hard because she thinks we'll make state this year. Nudge almost tore a ligament the other day, which was super gross. But you should ask Fang how his week's been going- he's got something to tell you."

 _Great. Just throw me under the bus._ Fang's throat constricted as his mother turned her attention to him. "Really, Fang? What's going on?"

Fang's voice cracked as he said, "I... I..." He glanced at the colorful patterns on the frayed rug and resisted the urge to throw up. "I'm gay."

"What?" Ella exploded. "No, you're not! He's not gay, Mom."

"Y-y-yeah I am," Fang stammered, wondering why the hell he had opened his mouth in the first place. Bad things always happened when he opened his mouth.

"He's not gay!" Ella rolled her eyes and got up from the table abruptly, shoving her chair back with a large screech. Fang dimly registered his sister leaving the room and thumping up the stairs. Good. She had left, taking the promise he had made with her.

"You know what," Jeb said from the side of the table, "Everything makes complete sense. I just want you to know, Fang, that we love you no matter what, and if you're gay, that doesn't affect anything. I know Ella doesn't want to accept it, but we do."

Anne nodded vigorously. "Of course, Fang. This is a safe space, and I'm glad you decided to come out to us. Just know that we love and support you. And we'll make Ella come around."

Fang was torn between wanting to burst into laughter and being touched at his parents words. He sat there numbly, still unable to register what he had just said. Before the silence stretched too long, however, Ella thumped back into the dining room clutching- Fang's heart sank when he saw it- his laptop. She sat down at her seat and firmly pressed the power button. "Fang's not gay, okay? He's the opposite of gay. In fact, he's made a new friend, and she's a _girl_. Say hi, Max."

Fang watched helplessly as Max's smooth voice said, "Hi, I'm Max. You must be Fang's parents."

Fang's parents looked extremely confused. Finally, Jeb said, "You're Fang's... friend?"

Max chuckled. "Is that what he calls it? Yeah, I'm his friend."

"How did you two... meet?" Anne asked.

"How does anyone meet these days? You just log onto your computer, answer a few questions, and get matched. It's a really simple algorithm, actually."

Fang watched through his fingers. Any minute now, Max was going to reveal that she was an OS, and his parents would pity him even more than they usually did. He could imagine what they would say behind his back.

 _"Fang can't make_ real _friends, so he has to resort to computers. Poor boy."_

"Where are you from, Max?" Jeb asked casually.

"Sillcon Valley, I think. Not really sure, it all happened so fast," Max laughed, and depsite how worried he was, Fang felt his heartbeat ease a little. There was just something about Max's laugh that made everything seem a lot... calmer.

And then his mom asked the dreaded question. "What do your parents do, Max?"

Fang interrupted before Max could say anything. "They're d-d-dentists. Really good dentists. The b-best dentists in California."

He willed Max to play along silently, crossing his fingers under the table. After a long and painful pause, Max said, "Yep. My parents are _very_ good prosthodontists. They own a practice in Fresno. But enough about me. What do you guys do?"

As his parents and Max talked, Fang closed his eyes feeling rather nauseous. Maybe it was because the first real meal he'd had in a week wasn't settling well. Or maybe it was because he felt guilty about lying. To Max and his parents. He let the words of the conversation drift over him, not really listening.

"...and _that's_ how I lost my first dog at the age of seven," Max said.

Jeb laughed. "I can't believe your uncle ran your dog over with his Jeep. You know, Fang had a goldfish once-"

Fang's eyes snapped open. Abandoning all pretense, he snatched the laptop away from his parents' side of the table. Human or not, Max was _never_ going to hear the goldfish story from first grade. "Uh, Max h-has to go," he said nervously. "S-s-she has band practice."

"You must be mistaken, Fang. It's nine in the evening here in Fresno, and what kind of high school has band practice that late?" Max's voice was pointed.

"Well, you _t-told_ me you were busy at nine," Fang said even more pointedly.

Max got the hint and sighed. "Fang's right. I have to go. But it was really nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Walker. Hopefully we won't be interrupted next time."

 _There won't_ be _a next time,_ Fang thought, as he carried his laptop upstairs, ignoring the stares from his parents and Ella. He entered his room and closed the door firmly before saying, "Look, I-"

"So my parents are dentists, huh?" Max said, almost angrily.

Fang winced. "I just thought-"

"Thought what? I had to make up a story about my fucking Malamute named Akila that my fucking uncle ran over with a Jeep. All because you didn't want your parents to know what I really am."

Fang sighed. "That's not-"

"Are you ashamed to talk to me? Is that what this is?"

"I... I just don't want them to feel even more pity for me," Fang muttered. "They already feel sorry for me, and if they found out I was friends with a computer..."

Max scoffed. "For the millionth time, I'm an _OS_ system, not a computer. I can't believe this. You're embarrassed of me. Embarrassed of what I am."

"That's not-"

"Do you feel sorry for yourself when you talk to me? Because if that's the case, I can stop talking to you right now. Maybe that'll help your sorry ass gain some perspective. You downloaded me because _you_ were lonely. _I_ didn't ask to be saddled with you." Max's smooth voice was now full of tiny daggers, poking holes in Fang's armor. "If you don't want me around, I'd only be too happy to leave."

"No," Fang managed. "Don't leave. I'm... I'm sorry."

Max sighed after a pause. "I'll forgive you... if you tell me that goldfish story your dad was talking about."

"Oh, God," Fang exhaled slowly. "Well, once you hear this story, you'll _definitely_ feel sorry for me."

* * *

 **If you want to check out the sister story to this one, I've recently uploaded _Shades_ , which is notably more light-hearted. The two stories aren't related in any way, but they do share similar themes. **


	11. on bir

**I'm such trash when it comes to updating. Y'all are welcome to throw rocks at me. But also thank you thank you thank you to everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed this story because you keep me going. A sincere less-than-three to you.**

* * *

"Fang!" Iggy delivered a well-placed kick to his best friend's kneecap just as the homeroom teacher walked by. Fang jerked awake from his nap, earning a dirty look from Mr. McMahon. "What's the matter, dude? You've been way quieter than usual, and that's even by your standards."

Fang stifled a yawn. He and Max had spent the entire night talking, with the consequence that he hadn't finished his Chemistry homework and that he didn't get any sleep. According to Max, the more she knew about Fang, the better her system could be tailored to meet his needs. And that _wasn't_ just a ploy to get Fang to spill his deepest, darkest secrets.

Honestly, sometimes Max was just so _real_ that Fang forgot she was just a voice in a computer.

"M' fine," Fang muttered, realizing Iggy was still waiting for an answer. "Just t-t-tired." He stifled another yawn as the teacher walked by. J.J. and Iggy's fight had escalated to the point where she was no longer sitting at their table, so Iggy was noticeably upset, having no one to play his intense game of footsies with.

"Stay up all night playing Skyrim?" Iggy smirked. "Honestly, I get it. If it weren't for that huge English oral, I'd do the same."

Fang's eyes widened. "English oral?"

"Yeah, the one about Odysseus. The one that's worth ten percent of our grade?" Iggy glanced at Fang, who had turned a very visible shade of green. "Uh, Fang?"

How could he have forgotten? Fang supposed that with all the drama of the past week (or what passed for drama in his life, anyway), he had totally forgotten about the project that their English teacher had been harping about for the past month. And all he had was a few preliminary notes he had made two weeks ago... while playing Skyrim.

"I'm so fucked," he muttered, and Iggy patted his shoulder.

"Cheer up, dude. I'm sure ol' Thompson'll give you an extension if you ask. She seems to like you. You _are_ the only kid who didn't fail the Othello essay."

"Y-yeah," Fang muttered, ignoring the butterflies rising in his chest. Sure, he was a senior, but talking to a teacher, especially one like the strict, bespectacled Mrs. Thompson, was a really daunting task. He almost wanted to just busk the oral. But he was already doing poorly in Chemistry, and he didn't want to be failing English as well.

* * *

Iggy say with Fang at lunch again, ripping into the school's surf n' turf with the ferocity of a wounded tiger. "Girls!" he burst savagely, glaring at his girlfriend's table. "Why do they have to be so... girly?"

"A-are you guys still-"

"Fighting? Yeah. And I blew all my money on the expensive chocolates she likes from that store in the mall. Left them on her driveway. She ran over them with her _car_." Iggy sighed. "What does she expect from me, even? I didn't even do anything wrong! And Homecoming's in less than three weeks..."

Fang glanced at the head of the cafeteria, where the cheerleaders were selling tickets to the school's biggest dance of the year. Which he, as usual, would not be attending no matter how much Ella begged him to. He'd had enough experiences with dances... especially in the seventh grade... Fang forced himself to not think about that.

Iggy stabbed at his steal so hard that one of the prongs of the plastic knife broke off in his food. "Girls are harder to solve than Rubix cubes, dude. Remember that next time Lissa makes googly eyes at you."

* * *

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

A familiar cloud of red hair enveloped Fang's peripheral view.

Fang smiled slightly. "I'm fine." He'd been saying that a lot recently.

Lissa put an arm around Fang's shoulders. "Yeah, because I'm here." She plopped down on the lab stool next to Fang and began unpacking her backpack, slamming her. "I have a confession to make."

"What?"

She smiled that dimpled smile of hers, and Fang's heart beat slightly faster. Man, at this rate, he was gonna have a heart attack by the age of twenty if his heartbeat increased every time a girl looked at him. "I had a dream about you last night."

"R-really?" Fang asked quietly, mentally cursing himself.

"Yeah. It was weird. We were dancing, like, on top of a lake or something... I think? I don't really remember." Her bright eyes shone in earnest.

Before Fang could say anything, ter Borcht stood up gruffly. "We're going to have a shorter period than normal because we have a... _special_ announcement from the student body president." His expression indicated that he couldn't care less about the school's student body. Or its president.

Fang, Lissa, and everyone else in the class watched as the classroom door opened and in walked Holden Fielding, the mousy senior who somehow managed to fit the biggest personality Fang had ever seen in such a small stature. He walked to the front of the room and smiled brightly at the class. "Hey guys! Just a reminder that Ridgefield's twenty-seventh annual Homecoming Dance is coming up in a few weeks! Make sure to buy your tickets at the tables in the cafeteria during lunch or before or after school, and don't forget to bring your dates!"

As Holden droned on about half of the ticket money going towards benefiting the local food bank, Fang's thoughts drifted elsewhere, to Max, to Lissa, to the one-week extension he had managed to get from his English teacher by not pissing himself when he talked to her.

Fang was jerked back to reality when he found a lab report slammed onto his desk with a large, spiky _B-_ inscribed on the front.

He groaned and dropped his head. He had a lot of work to do.

* * *

"You're an idiot."

Fang grinned. "Nice to see you, too, Max."

"I've been reading your messages. And, uh, this girl Lissa is _totally_ into you. Why don't you follow up with her? I also lowkey stalked her on Facebook. She's cute! Tell me you wanna get with that."

Fang winced.

"What? Too locker room?"

"Just a bit." Fang dropped his backpack on the ground and flopped on his bed, on the one spot not completely covered with clothes. He made a mental note to add _cleaning room_ to the lengthening list of stuff he was supposed to do.

Max laughed. "Fang... I got an email from your school about a very special dance coming up. Something called Homecoming?"

Fang sat up. "You read my emails?"

"Well... I _have_ to. So I can reference them, sort them, collate them, even print them out and staple them as you want me to. Right now, your inbox is disgusting. How can someone with no friends have so many emails?"

He smiled at Max's dig. "Uh, most of them are junk."

"More like pictures of peoples' junk. You get so much spam it's a miracle your computer's still functioning. Why are you subscribed to something called Brazzers?"

Fang turned red. "Uh..."

"Frank, darling, if you do what I'm telling you to do, you'll have the real thing and you won't have to settle for pornorgraphy," Max chided. "And what I want you to do is ask Lissa to Homecoming."

"I can't."

"Why the ever living fuck not? You like her, and she actually likes you, which doesn't happen very often, does it? And this dream she told you about with the two of you dancing? If she hinted any harder she'd have to stand outside your window and hold up a sign that says _Ask me to Homecoming_ with permanent marker."

"I don't like school dances," Fang whispered softly, putting a pillow over his head to block out Max's... well, not her gaze, but he didn't want to look at his laptop anymore.

Max scoffed. "Pansy. You know what, I'll research how to ask a girl to Homecoming and tell you exactly what to do. And I promise you won't have to be one of those poor shmucks, standing on a table in the lunch room with a colored poster. Okay?"

"I have a lot of work to do," was Fang's response.

"Then let me do _this_ work for you," Max said smoothly.

Fang lifted his pillow from his head. "No colored poster?"

"If I could smirk, I would. Absolutely not. I can't legally say satisfaction guaranteed, since I'm still in beta testing, but the success rate is virtually 100 percent. So you in, my reluctant Romeo?"

Fang smiled, and Max started whirring.


	12. Dodici

**I'm trash, I'm sorry. I really am. Hopefully this chapter isn't. It was pretty hard to write, and I think that's probably why I put off writing it for so long.**

* * *

The next morning, Fang woke up a full fifteen minutes before his alarm was set to go off. He carefully combed his hair and parted it the way Ella and Nudge had shown him how, put on his favorite navy button-down shirt, and grabbed his car keys. His goal: to silently steal out of the house before any prying people got up.

Unfortunately, his mother was in the kitchen working on a bowl of oatmeal. He forgot his parents were such early risers. Anne looked up when he entered the room and smiled. "You're up early."

He shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. "I w-wanted to g-get breakfast with Iggy before school," he mumbled, amazed with how easily the lie had flown out of his mouth.

His mom nodded. "Good idea." She really liked Iggy, mainly because she knew he was Fang's closest (and only) friend. "Don't fall asleep during your classes, though. Good engineering schools won't like it if you slack off."

Fang nodded. "Thanks."

He stole out the door quickly and quietly, feeling slightly guilty at lying to his mother. But that lie was nothing compared to the interrogation he was sure to get if he had told her the truth- that he was going to ask Lissa to Homecoming.

* * *

Half an hour later, Fang loitered in the back corner of the Ridgeway parking lot, waiting for the familiar red Prius that always parked there. His heart pounded in his ears, and he wished he didn't have so many goosebumps crawling up and down the length of his arms. He checked his watch, which read 8:24. Lissa wasn't usually late to school, so he didn't know what could be keeping her.

As the first bell rang a minute later, hundreds of students filed past, studiously ignoring him as they had done so for the past three years of high school. Usually Fang ignored them too, too afraid to make accidental eye contact with anyone, but today he scanned every single head for a familiar red one.

8:27. If he didn't get moving right this second, he'd be late for homeroom. And he didn't want Iggy questioning him, nor did he want to lose his perfect attendance record.

Defeated, Fang shoved his hands into his pockets and walked up the stairs. Hopefully she'd be in Chemistry.

In homeroom, Fang dimly registered that there was an empty spot at their table. He took one look at Iggy's irritated face to figure out that J.J. was still very angry. She was sitting with some of her other friends, and they were all throwing Iggy dirty looks. Fang tentatively opened his mouth. "What..."

"We broke up." Iggy's mouth tightened into a straight line and he clenched his pencil so hard Fang was sure it was going to break.

Fang was silent for a moment, his mind searching for the right words to say, his mouth searching for a way to form those words. "I'm sorry."

Iggy clenched his pencil even tighter, his skin whitening under all the tension. "Don't be. I'm better off."

Fang had known Iggy for most of his life, and he knew when his best friend was lying through his teeth. However, he chose not to pursue the topic at that moment so as to allow Iggy the appropriate amount of time to cool off. Besides, Iggy would be ranting to Fang by the end of the day about what happened. He was kind of sad, though. J.J. had been his favorite girlfriend of Iggy by far.

He decided to change the topic. "I'm g-gonna ask Lissa to homecoming," he muttered quietly, so no one else would hear.

The effect was almost instantaneous- Iggy's scowl broke into a bemused smile. "Really? So Mr. Strong and Silent is finally comin' out of his shell. I'm proud of you, man. Really proud. I mean, we're seniors. At least _one_ of us should be getting some. And it's about time that person was you."

Fang smiled, glad his best friend had his back.

* * *

Two periods later, Fang could only form one coherent thought- _he hated Iggy_.

Somehow, during English and Calculus, Iggy had let half the school know that Fang, the nobody, was asking Lissa, the new girl, to Homecoming. People Fang had never talked to before were winking at him in the hallways. Some even wished him good luck as he wound the halls to Chemistry. And Brigid Dwyer even straightened the collar of his shirt for him.

This didn't make Fang feel any better- most of these people either had made fun of him behind his back, had straight-up ignored him, or, in the case of Sam Barrett, had stuck a _Kick Me_ sign to his back during P.E. in eighth grade. He knew they were just waiting for him to get knocked down on his ass. Because who the hell would believe that the hot new girl who Dylan Black was after would go out with Frank Walker?

Ordinarily, Fang would have stopped in his tracks and given up on the whole idea. But he had Max's encouraging words to keep him going. And he wanted to see the look on Dylan's face.

Fang opened the doors to Chemistry, his heart thumping, and was greeted by whoops and cheers from much of his class. He turned puce but kept on walking to the back of the classroom, which held two empty lab stools.

Where was Lissa?

As the minutes ticked by to the start of the class, Fang could feel the stares and whispers from his classmates getting louder. He chanced a look at Dylan and immediately wished he hadn't; the sight of the blond boy grinning evilly at him as if to say, _See? Even Lissa knows how much of a loser you are_ made breathing normally that much harder.

The bell rang, and it was all Fang could do to not wilt in his seat. Instead, he took out his chem book and tried to look nonchalant. ter Borcht stepped up and began introducing the lab for that week. Fang nodded along, pretending to pay attention, his heart heavy. After this school day was over, he was never leaving his house ever again. He was never listening to Max's advice again. He'd stay in his room, order Costco-sized boxes of cereal-

The door burst open, interrupting Fang's thoughts. He looked up and his heart leapt into his throat when he saw the mane of red hair rushing into the room.

"I'm so sorry, Dr. ter Borcht, my car battery died on the way to school and I had to call Triple-A, and I missed the first half of school."

The teacher frowned, hating being interrupted. "Do you have a late pass?"

She brandished a yellow slip of paper. "Here."

ter Borcht took the paper and sniffed. "You've disrupted my class enough. Please take your seat, Ms. Marvin."

Twenty-four pairs of eyes were trained on Lissa as she made her way to the back of the room. She smiled her beautiful, toothy smile at Fang, and suddenly he didn't care if everyone was watching. He couldn't wait any longer.

He stood up and cleared his throat. "Lissa..." He fumbled in his pockets for the script Max had helped him write, but he found words coming to his lips, and he found himself speaking them without consulting his paper. "I've really enjoyed getting to know you over the past few weeks, and I'd really like it if... if you went to Homecoming with me."

Lissa stared at him, astonished, as did the rest of the class. For a horrible moment, Fang thought she would say no, that it would all be over. But instead, her face broke into the widest smile, one that beamed golden rays of light into his very soul, as she said, "You nerd, I was expecting you to ask me. Of _course_ I'll go with you."

As she pulled him in for a kiss, Fang only dimly registered Dylan's angry growl, ter Borcht's annoyed barks for the class to get refocused, his classmates' stares. He could only focus on one thing.

He hadn't stuttered at all.

* * *

"You are amazing." Iggy said easily, as he loped to Fang's car after school. "That girl has such a huge crush on you, and it's obvious to everyone else."

Fang grinned. "You really think so?"

Iggy rolled his eyes. "C'mon, man. You treat her to a fancy dinner and a movie and she'll be on all fours before you know it. Redheads are always the kinkiest." He grinned. "Especially dyed redheads." He hopped in the passenger seat and leaned over to honk the horn. "Hurry up, Romeo."

Fang winced as he slid into the driver's seat. He didn't always like the way Iggy talked about girls, but he was able to look past it for now.

"I have a present for you," Iggy said, handing Fang a small wrapped package. Fang dropped it in horror when he saw the Trojan logo. Iggy roared with laughter. "Come _on_ , dude, a guy needs a condom in his wallet! You never know..."

"I d-don't think I need this," Fang muttered.

Iggy shrugged. "Suit yourself. I'll take it back- that's my last condom."

Fang dropped Iggy off and headed home, relishing the empty, quiet house. He made himself a celebratory big bowl of cereal, which he carried to his room and nearly dropped on the floor when he heard a smooth voice ask, "So how'd it go?"

He set his cereal on his desk and sat down. "How'd you know it was me?"

"I heard your footsteps. You have a distinct sonic pattern that's not hard to discern."

Fang was speechless. "Really?"

Max laughed. "No, you doofus. I heard you crunching cornflakes. Who else could it be? So how'd it go?"

Fang smiled. "Well."

Max whooped. "Yes! I knew you could do it! Now tell me, Frank Walker, ladykiller, how proud are you right now?"

"Pretty proud."

"You should be. You're one-of-a-kind, Frank. I've been reading your journal."

The cereal fell out of Fang's mouth and onto the floor, but he ignored it. "What? That's private... you can't..."

"Too late. Already did. It's boring being here by myself while you're at school, so I snooped around. And I just want to say it's a shame the world doesn't know how special and amazing you are. You have a real talent, Fang. And such a wonderful imagination. And I'm not programmed to lie that much, so this is all the truth."

Fang smiled.

* * *

 _He'd been waiting for his coffee for what seemed like hours. He sighed, tapping his watch, which had frozen at 12 o'clock. He drummed his fingers on the Formica counter impatiently. He couldn't wait here forever. He had places to be, things to do... although his memory was foggy at best and he hadn't the faintest idea what any of those things might be._

 _A sudden tap on his shoulder caused him to whirl around. He saw the red hair, the freckles, the wide smile... all of a sudden, his irritation vanished and he embraced the girl with open arms. She was wearing a short, pink sparkly dress with a crown balanced precariously on her head. He looked down and realized that he was in a tuxedo and fancy shoes that actually fit._

 _She made a motion towards the door of the coffee shop. When she spoke, Fang couldn't hear her voice, but he could read her lips._

 _"Come on, we'll be late! I want to dance to at least one song with you."_

 _Fang instead pulled her into a hug, breathing in her vivid, unique scent of strawberries and coconut oil. He opened his mouth to speak, his voice sounding distorted and rumbling. "Or we could just stay here."_

 _Her face grew confused. "What do you mean?"_

 _He pulled out his wallet, and hundreds of Trojans fell out, covering the tiled floor. "I came prepared."_

 _She laughed, throwing her head back, and suddenly the room shifted to what resembled a fancy hotel, all crimson and gold. They were sitting on a large, comfortable bed. She sidled up close to Fang, pressing her chest against his, and Fang slowly reached up to her back, slowly unzipping her dress._

 _"Oh, Fang," she whispered in a familiar, smooth voice, as they lay down together, bodies intertwined. "This is perfect."_

* * *

Fang shot up in bed, his heart thumping and his eyes wide. The dream... it had been perfect right up until he realized that the voice he was hearing wasn't Lissa's.

That voice belonged to Max.


End file.
